I spent most of the day attempting to remove the fan from my 96 5.2. I think I tried every trick in the book. None of which worked.
I've had an overheating problem for the past little while and finally narrowed it down to the water pump. It took all my self control not to take a shot gun to her. I also ended up bending my rad cap and the neck to the radiator in the process. I found a good ole boy to give me a hand tomorrow. Wish me luck. shot g

 

This is a little radical, but after swearing at my 97 ZJ 4.0 enough for my wife to come out and tell me to mind the neighbors, I took a sawzall to the top part of the fan shroud so I could get to the fan bolts. Everything was fairly easy after that. I had the foresight to paint the tips of the fan blades flouresant orange so anybody else opening the hood would be careful. It didn't seem to effect the cooling.

 

The fan coupling on the 5.2L is reverse thread..

Counter clockwise to loosen..

 

AH, HAH! Wait, CC to loosen is right for right hand thread, not left hand!

 

Beat me too it. Lol

 

The fan has a large barrel type coupling... it got me the first time i pulled one too.

EDIT: Maybe i'm having a senior moment here.. and i'm mistaken. I'd do a Google search.. that'll tell ya quick enough.

 

I always get confused when trying to loosed nuts on the bottom of something. I have to stop and think, "You're looking at the bolt head. The nut's on the bottom. The other way, stupid!"

This from a toolmaker for 40 years.

 

Yeah - weird stuff like that, if it doesn't loosen the first time, try turning it the other way. May surprise you...

You want fun? Try doing brakes on a car with "handed" lugs - RH thread on one side, LH on the other.

Then some jackass comes around and mixes up your lug nuts. That will definitely incite you to violence (it was my old man - and I waited until he was turned around to wing the spider wrench at him. Caught him right in the back of the head. Oddly, he NEVER fingered a job of mine after that...)

 

I had a 65 Dart that had left handed thread lugs on the left side of the car. I wanted to put some Cragers on it but could not find the right lug nuts for the left side. I ened up replacing all of the left side studs with right hand thread studs. Problem solved.

 

Oh yeah. Ancient Chrysler products had left handed lugs on the left side. I remenber doing a brake job on an old Dodge where someone swapped the two front drums on me. It least Mopar stamped the end of the studs with a little "L". Hard to see when they're rusted. Their theory at the time was they had less of a tendency to loosen.

 

Saw that a lot on old German and English cars as well...

 

So the instal went well. Ended up having to use an air chisel to loosen the nut. Unfortunately in the process the day before. The neck of my all aluminum radiator was bent to hell. We worked it back as best we could but it still won't seal properly. Going to a radiator shop tomorrow. The saga continues.

 

I took the longer approach when I did a radiator swap on a 4.0 ZJ.

I loosened the shroud, pushed it back, removed fan bolts and lifted fan and shroud out together.

Putting it back in proved to be more fun ... not.

But I got it all back together without destroying anything.

 

Well... After a week and a half, a new radiator, water pump and two thermostats, I think my overheating woes are behind me.