Electric Fan Installation

Vintage Mustangs are not well-endowed with radiator frontal area, which makes them especially vulnerable to overheating in warm weather or when stuck in stop-and-go traffic. Add factors like air conditioning along with healthy engine modifications, and overheating becomes a real and distinct possibility. But with a Flex-a-lite electric fan, you can avoid becoming sidelined with overheating problems.

Last year, when we installed a Flex-a-lite Black Magic 150 on our ’66 Mustang, we encountered some very close clearances, even to the point where we had to mount the unit slightly off-center to provide space between the fan motor and water-pump mainshaft. Now Flex-a-lite has added a new electric fan, PN 475, that is designed to eliminate the clearance problems on ’65-’66 Mustangs, making the installation much easier.

The advantage to an electric fan is that it runs at full rpm even when the engine is at idle. The fully shrouded and sealed Flex-a-lite unit ensures that all air moved by the fan travels through the radiator. Most early Mustangs had no fan shroud at all, and even the ones equipped with air conditioning came with just a small shroud of marginal efficiency. Another added advantage to an electric fan is the engine no longer drives the fan, so there’s more horsepower transferred to the rear wheels.

While the mounting bracketry for this new Mustang fan is still in the development stage, you should be able to order the fan by the time you read this and be confident that it’s going to fit your ’65-’66 Mustang.