Me again...

it's getting warm and so is my car...loads of fresh 15/40 but the oil cooler is looking a bit fluffy. They positioned the alt/fan belt in such a way that you get a nice dose of rubber dust / crud on the cooler.

I don't really want to take it off to do it - so what can i use?

i thought about GUNK de-greaser and an old toothbrush, but then figured it would fowl up the fan-belt?

small hoover nossle????

cheers will

I usually use clean petrol and a cheap paintbrush. You can also blow it wtrough with compressed air, but if you haven't got a compressor taking your fan off and messing about with the airline at your local petrol station is probably a bit of a no no. I've never blown one through, as it were, and I've never had overheating problems.

Take the fan off and do it properly, it shouldn't be that hard to get off, and the more often you do it the easier it is, and you should take it off to check the points occasionally.

Undo the four 11mm bolts to remove the mesh cover,
A thin walled 14mm socket to undo the fan retaining bolt,
A piece of good fitting bar in the starting handle dog, and yank it up and down, not difficult.

Oh, you should certainly take the fan off. Just not at your local petrol station when other people are queueing up to use the airline.

I'd love to know how you intend to clean the oil cooler without removing the fan... And if the fan's off, then the belt can easily be moved to one side.

This was the state of my oil cooler once I'd got the fan off. From memory I sprayed it with engine degreaser, allowed it to soak in for a few hours then using air from my compressor blew the muck out from the back forwards. How the engine didn't overheat before, I'll never know. It's now immaculate so the engine now has a sporting chance.

I don't think Williami wanted to clean the oil cooler without removing the fan, just without removing the oil cooler. At least that's how I read it. Perhaps I'm wrong, in which case ... take the fan off. You'll never get it clean otherwise.

I thought it might be odd to be trying to clean the cooler without removing the fan, but Will was concerned about degreaser fowling(sic) up the fan belt. Surely once the fan was off, moving the belt out of the way would be a given. Therefore I assumed he was attempting it with the fan on. Perhaps Will can clarify, and has he managed it yet, one way or the other.

oh no....I did!!! by poking a hoover nostle in after taking the belt cover off - the cooler was no way as mucky as Paul's - you could see all the fins, just with a line of 'rubber dust' where the belt flys by it. so sprayed some petrol in there, waited half and hour, then got in there with an adapted Dyson attachment, seems to have done quite a good job....

it's not so much laziness as lack of time....well you can decide!!! lazy or innovative???

Ami faces are a ball-ache to whip off quickly....

i'll do it properly soon - as per your advice here - cheers now

Will

Whilst it's true that I'd forgotten we were talking Ami, on an 8/Super it's not that bad to just remove the grille. I swapped the plastic of the fan on the Super through the grille once. Yes, just the plastic - which attaches to the backing plate in a very similar way to 2cv - except the fan is bolted to the crank with a driveshaft-kinda-size-nut done up to rear-hub-kinda-torque...