I have the 2002 Grand Cherokee with the hydraulic cooling fan. It stopped working recently, and when I pulled it out, I noticed it has several rows of ball bearings. The bearings are stationary, so they are not designed to move. My question is what are they there for? Are they just counter weights so the hydraulic pump feels some resistance?

Most of the bearings are missing from the fan, and I noticed that as they disappeared, that is when the fan stopped working.

If they are just weights, is it possible to replace them with a steel putty weighing the same amount?

I really need help with this, as to replace the fan assembly will be over $1100.00

 

Pull all that junk out and replace it with electric fans...

 

The amount of modification it would take would cost way more. I already looked into this

 

Autozone shows a new fan clutch for $52.

 

That's for the electric fan for the v8 w/o tow package. The fan I have is a solid 1 piece construction. It uses pulse width modulation to accelerate the fan

 

There's no way it'd cost $1100 to convert to electric... That's just silly.