DISCONNECT THE NEGATIVE LEAD FROM YOUR BATTERY BEFORE PROCEEDING !
Radiator Removal
The first step is to drain and remove the radiator. Take off the radiator cap and fully open the heater control inside the car. There is a small drain plug on the bottom of the radiator. Be careful, there should be a thin washer on the drain plug. Next loosen the hose clamps on the 2 large radiator hoses and pull them off. Remove the hose that leads to the overflow bottle. Remove the two 13mm bolts on either side of the radiator that hold it onto the body of the car. Be careful to bag all those washers and rubber parts. Do not lose the small rubber bits, they can be a pain to reacquire.
After removing the 13mm bolts, lift up and out on the radiator, it should slip right out. On the bottom of the radiator or left stuck in the car should be a u-shaped rubber pad. Don't lose this piece. If you take it to the radiator shop, you probably won't get it back (Ask Me How I Know). Remove the bolts that hold your fan onto the engine. The fan will slide right off after the bolts are removed.
At this point you need to decide if you want your radiator cleaned and rodded out. My repair with cleaning, hole patching, and rodding cost me $75.
Mounting The Electric Fan
Now it is time to attach the new electric fan to the radiator. I used the Hayden #3680, 12-inch fan (purchased at PepBoys). It is the perfect size to fit onto the radiator. Another option is the complete electric fan conversion kit for 4-cylinder Alfas sold by AR Ricambi. The Hayden fan comes shipped as a puller type fan, i.e. a fan that is made to put on the engine side of the radiator and pull cool air through the radiator into the engine compartment. Since there isn't the room to do this in a GTV or Spider, you must convert the fan to the pusher configuration on the outside of the radiator blowing air in. This is simple to do. There is a nut and a locking washer holding the fan blade to the motor shaft, undo the nut andsimply turn the fan over and replace the nut and washer.
There are 2 wires coming from the fan. Connecting the wires to the battery will make the fan turn in one direction, reversing the polarity of the wires will cause the fan to turn in the opposite direction. Since the open end of the fan will attach flush to the radiator, you must get the fan to push the air outwards, away from the fan. Securely place the fan near a 12 volt source (like the battery) and touch one of the wires to the + and the other wire to the - pole of the battery... watch your fingers ! Place a small piece of newspaper near the blades. The correct polarity will blow the paper away from the fan, the opposite polarity will suck the paper into the fan. Just reverse the wires if the newspaper doesn't blow away from the fan.
The Hayden fan provides mounting hardware to attach the fan directly onto the cooling fins of the radiator. Some people believe that this will damage your radiator and that you must have a bracket onto which you can attach the fan, while others think this method of mounting is fine. I mounted the fan directly onto the radiator as per the instructions provided in the kit. Since the fan is the exact height of the radiator fins , there is no leeway for mounting it in the vertical plane, but you do need to center it horizontally. The kit provides plastic notched rods, these rods are pushed through the fan, through supplied foam pads and springs, through the radiator fins ( no damage to coolant channels), then are locked into place by a disk that slides down the rod and locks. The rod and disk locking mechanism is very similar to the way plastic wire bundling ties work. With the fan mounted onto the radiator, you are almost ready to reinstall it into the car.
