I did a search on testing the fan. My fan is hard to turn when cold and easy to turn when hot. Info on the forum says that is good. The Haynes manual disagrees and intuitively, that would seem correct. You would want maximum fan when hot.
Can anyone tell me which is correct?

 

easy when cold ,hard when hot . Replace it .

 

The test procedure in the FSM is some what long and drawn out and involves drilling a small hole in the fan shroud, inserting a thermometer, blocking air flow thru the rad, reving the motor, reading air temp as it passes thru the rad, blah, blah, blah. It'll take less time and about $35 to just install a new fan clutch. Besides, fan clutches slowly degrade in performance with time/miles starting the day they are installed.

 

Yes, don't believe anything you read on the Internet! It's full of basement-dwelling mouthbreathers and the woefully inept!



+1 sounds like it's bad, just replaced it. If it's original it should be done anyway

 

Stick a rolled-up newspaper into it when it's all warmed up and running.

If the newspaper stops it, it's bad.

If the fan chews up the newspaper, the clutch is working properly.

 

Are we going to go over this again? This is dangerous and dumb.

It sounds bad just swap it out.

 

A few years ago I bought bad new clutch! Second one was good.
It is smarter to check first, replace later. And then check new one!
Newspaper test is really dangerous... For newspaper!

 

Was it from this amazing AutoZone place I keep reading about?

 

bad clutch was from Advance Auto. Next one from there was OK.
It was 7 years ago for my first XJ.
I bought and installed HD radiator instead of checking clutch first.

 

I do something similar. I just use the garden hose.

If you can make it stop by spraying it with water then it's time to replace it.

 

Does anybody use sh.t to check fan?