I decided after 15 months of having the MINI that the infamous power steering fan needed some more protection. Especially after bottoming the MINI out on the center hump of a gravel road. First I looked at the online offerings and thought the $40.00 for the shroud from mossmini was a little steep. So after putting on my thinking cap here are the results:
Before:
And After:
Since this picture I tweaked the profile a little more to the shape of the fan and am putting mounting washers at the locations of the bolts. This is a piece of cake mod and cheap protection. If anyone is interested drop me a PM, or an e-mail at pchurnock@sbcglobal.net and I can either tell you how I did it, or fab one up for a much more reasonable cost.
I question this the same as I have the other half dozen times I've seen this. Never have gotten a good answer .
With the screen mounted flush to the fan face I don't think you're getting that much better protection. Yes it is better than nothing for sure.
Here's my take. Your aforementioned bottoming out could just as well press that soft screen permanently onto the fan blade stopping it.
One of the most common overheat scenerios I've read is the plastic bag blockage. Once again with the screen flush the bag will suck straight to the body and block all the air anyway. The advantage would be the fan may still turn which should give you a little more time but how much?
I'd elevate the top to give it a bit of slope to help brush off debris and also get you some air flow from the side should you pick up the deadly plastic bag.
I lookat at this scenario and came to this conclusion:
The total protection is about 4" across. The fan about 3" and the center hub of the fan about 1".
The fan has a lip around it of about a 1/8" and the blades are set back about a 1/4", you can see that in the before picture. At worst you take a direct hit of a large object on bottoming out and pushes the whole cover back and in. It's going to bottom out on the lip and the hub, but you aren't going to get it to stop the blade from turning, maybe it'll rub on the hub but it won't catch the blades.
Without the protection I think you suffer from a different problem: the fan eating the bag. You're cruising along at 60mph and whoop... you suck up a plastic bag. It's first going to have to catch on something, otherwise it blows back out. Because of the lower pressure in the engine compartment it tends to suck up and then gets caught by the suction of the PS fan. Once this happens, you either stop and pull the bag out or your SOL. My take with the protection is, you can't eat the bag. A fan (especially a muffin fan) can pull against a suction all day long and rarely burn out. But a fan that has eaten something to stop the blades is now suffering from 'locked rotor' which is higher electrical current, more heat and faster fatigue than normal operation. With the guard in place, the chances of covering the entire 3" area of the fan intake is slim and with that you'll never have the fan sucking a vacuum also, thus the fan should survive this blockage as opposed to not having the protection.
I think you might want to trim your screen a bit more so it fits inside the lip of the mount.
The jagged edges extending out may actually snag something otherwise just passed over.
In answer to the questions raised:
1) I don't think there's much of a chance of the bottoming out scenerio happening with the fan tucked up behind the motor the way it is.
2) The suction of the fan would be nowhere near equal to the forces acting on the rest of the bag hanging down while the car is in motion. The air currents under a car in would be sufficiently strong enough to keep the bag from sticking as long as it wasn't snagged on something.
Mine's been on the car for almost a year now with no problems.
-- '03 S B/W
Magnaflow; Cibie lights; Madness intake; white 17" Team Dynamics; H&R springs; Helix swaybar; custom stripes
moorlockx: how did you get the grill to stay? I looked under there today and theres only 2 screws that i can fasten one end of the grill to. making the other end free and can move around.
maybe you can send me a high resolution of that picture so i can see everything in detail
The screen's held on by 4 machine screws with nuts and lock washers. You can make out the 3 of the screw heads in the corners in the posted pic. If you look in my gallery I believe the picture comes up a little bigger. If you need something better, I'll have to wait until I get the car up in the air again.
-- '03 S B/W
Magnaflow; Cibie lights; Madness intake; white 17" Team Dynamics; H&R springs; Helix swaybar; custom stripes
Doesn't the fan turn off when your doing a decent speed? Read somewhere the steering only used the elctric motor at low manouvouering speeds. So Surely at 60mphon the motorway you aint going to suck a bin bag in anyway?
I had the fan protection installed, but don't anymore! Took the car in for servicing because the car was having problems cooling and the AC wasn't wanting to work. Seems the PS fan had locked up and blown the fuse. So even with some protection, it's still vulnerable!
It does stop the Aux fan, which is a problem when not moving. However, it took 3-4 days before I was stuck in hot weather with stop and go traffic. Anything above 40mph seemed to do fine.
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Power Steering Fan Protection 
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