Vibration linked to radiator fan

[ZipTie]

My radiator has been rattling when the fan turns on. The vibration is low and pronounced and isn't in time with the speed of the rad fan. That is to say, sometimes the fan will start and run for a few moments before the vibration begins and when the fan turns off the frequency of the vibration will *increase* as the fan slows then stops. The blower motor seems balanced. There are no blades missing and no obvious damage.

At first i thought the issue was the two zip ties that secured the lower rad hose to the bottom of the fan cowling that had broken. The extra mass of the rad hose being attached to the fan cowling did help. Unfortunately, this did not fix the whole issue.

Video from underneath prior to adding zip ties:

Video i found from the top that looks extremely similar to what I'm seeing:

I know i could start throwing parts at the problem. My hope is that this is an issue that someone has encountered before and that there might be, for example, a radiator mount that likes to fail or fall out and i can save myself some time troubleshooting and wrenching.

Thanks in advance.

 

[scotman]

It looks like bearings in the fan motor have failed.

 

[Handy Andy]

I would also like to know if the radiator itself - holding that fan, has a bad bumper mount. There are moments where I see the fan rocking in the housing - which leads me to a rabbit hole of "does the spyder have damages" - or is the outer support frame have a cracked support that is loose and were just seeing the imbalace caused by the fan and engine - those two motions or vibrations - mixing together and it's due to a cracked radiator mount.

 

[ZipTie]

It looks like bearings in the fan motor have failed.

I concluded the same and pulled the fan assembly. The motor bearings did fail. Looking at my video you can actually see the fan jumping around in the first 5 seconds.

 

[ZipTie]

I would also like to know if the radiator itself - holding that fan, has a bad bumper mount. There are moments where I see the fan rocking in the housing - which leads me to a rabbit hole of "does the spyder have damages" - or is the outer support frame have a cracked support that is loose and were just seeing the imbalace caused by the fan and engine - those two motions or vibrations - mixing together and it's due to a cracked radiator mount.

I inspected them. They look like they have seen better days but they are a bear to replace so I'm gonna leave them be assuming everything is happy once the new fan is in.

 

[Handy Andy]

I wish you well, the only reason that post of mine came up, was due to the "gyroscopic" effect that a fan could have on a radiator and if there are bad mounts or not installed correctly - I have seen fans scrape the fins to a point where the once new replacement had to be replaced gain because a mount was not seated correctly and the fans own torque of turn and precession tore into the aluminum fins.