First let me say I didn't come up with this application, credit goes to people I saw post this on the other FE Forum in the past. The dual electric fan & shroud assembly from multiple 90's era Ford Contour / Mercury Mystique cars is almost a perfect fit dimension wise for a FE Mustang / Cougar radiator ( and also the extra cooling size radiators on some small blocks ). These are also a two speed fan. The FE Mustang radiators use a 16"x24" or 16"x23" core, and the shroud on the Contour set-up fits well. You could probably use these on a Fairlane / Comet FE radiator as well, although I believe they are a little taller, so you would have a gap. I did this same conversion on my '67 Shelby drag car I took on Hot Rod Dragweek a couple years ago, and I'm doing the same for my '67 Cougar I'm presently working on. I thought I'd post the step-by-step I used for mounting this in case anyone is interested. Feel free to add any comments or alternate methods if anyone else has done used this same fan assembly.
I don't know the exact years Ford used this, but it covers quite a few model years during the '90's. The dual electric fans come from the V6 Contours, the 4 cylinder models seem to have a single fan. I've been getting mine from the local U-Pull-It salvage yard, they charge about $35. So far I've pulled 3 sets, two I've used and one I have as a spare. At the yard you'll need a few sockets and a ratchet. The first time I went I didn't bring metric sockets, don't make that mistake, luckily I had my metric vice grip along
. You'll also need a wire cutter and some metric wrenches. It's been a while since I pulled one of these, sorry I don't remember the actual sizes needed. You may also need a small hacksaw. There will be a couple small hex head screws on the sides of the shroud to the core support, the lower two mounts just slide into rubber mounts. I've found it easiest to remove the radiator too for access, so you will need to remove the mounts for that and on one radiator I found the lower radiator mounting bolts rusted in place - for those I was able to cut through the support straps with the hacksaw, hence the recommendation to bring that. You will also have to remove or cut the transmission cooler lines and radiator hoses. If I remember you may also need to remove the battery tray to make access easier. Finally, remove the screw connecting the ground wire to the core support, you won't want to cut that wire. Leave the wiring harness attached to the shroud, and remember to grab both sides of the main wiring plug. I can usually get a couple feet of wire past the main connector too before it disappears into the main vehicle harness. There will be a couple other connectors attached to the fan wiring harness on the shroud that go to other components not needed, they can be unplugged. Inspect the wiring harness, if it has any damage you may want to grab a harness off a different assembly. When you leave the salvage yard you should have something like this:
When I get it home I take it all apart for cleaning. You can remove the harness from the shroud. There are small wire clips that hold the connectors to the motors and the resistor for the fan speed. The plastic fan blades can be removed from the motors and the motors can be unbolted from the shroud. If you look at the picture above you can see the 4 tabs on the side of the shroud that hold the assembly on the Contour, whether you need those will depend on how you want to mount it, what I've been doing is different so I cut those off with a hacksaw, then clean up the area with a die grinder to make a flat area. Here is a picture of the bare shroud being mocked up on my Griffin aluminum radiator. A stock Mustang radiator will be similar:
Here is the wiring harness as it comes on the Contour. I've disconnected the main connector that goes to the vehicle here:
Here I've removed some of the plastic conduit and unwrapped some of the factory electrical tape so you can see the wires. The purple wires with the connector and small black plastic component are not needed, I remove that from the harness and I cut off the black ground wire that goes to that ONLY and seal the wires. Leave the black ground that goes to the fan motors. Ford has it spliced together, just remove what goes with the purple wires.
Here's a picture after I've removed that and what you will want to keep. I tape it back up and reuse the plastic conduit if in good shape.
I've found I need to extend at least one side of the radiator to mount the shroud the way I'm doing it, you may or may not need to do the same. My other car has a 23" wide radiator so I extended it on both sides. I also use the angle aluminum extension to mount my fan relays in the car. I used some aluminum angle from the hardware store, anything similar would work. I bolted the angle to the side of the radiator, then I make small aluminum tabs that I pop rivet to the plastic shrould and bolt to the radiator. Here's a picture:
Here's the backside of the shroud showing the attachment. I use some thin aluminum strips for reinforcement on the pop rivets. I also pop rivet on plastic wire harness clamps to attach the wire harness back to the shroud , and use small washers to reinforce that, visible in the picture. Also in this picture you can see the resister assembly that controls the high-low speeds for the fans. If you don't get both fan speeds this is probably the cause.
Here it is all assembled to the radiator. You will want to attach the black ground wire to a good clean ground. There are two heavy gauge green wires with colored stripes that come out of the main wiring connector, if you apply 12 volts positive to ONE of those you will get the low fan speed on both fans, if you apply 12 volts positive to the OTHER wire you will get the high fan speed on both fans. You could rewire this if you would rather control the fans separately of course. These fans use quite a bit of current, and Ford uses some heavy gauge wiring, my advise is to use some good relays and circuit protection and wire it properly. When I did this project on my Shelby I used a Dakota Digital electric fan controller part number PAC-2750, and it works excellent. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to do the same on the Cougar, or just have them switched.
Also, I'm using a Meziere electric water pump on my Shelby and will be using the CVR electric pump on my Cougar with a set of Jay's water pump adapters, there is a small amount of interference from the nose of the water pump motor to the center of the shroud assembly on a FE Mustang, I made some clearance in the plastic with a die grinder. Here's a picture:
Finally I will say, overall I'm happy with this fan assembly, and certainly happy with the price, but I need to do some more work with my combination for street use. On Dragweek I was running on the warm side of what I would like, but I attribute at least some of that to not spending more time experimenting with ignition timing and jetting for street driving before Dragweek, along with running pump gas with iron heads and 12:1 compression and not having that all worked out. I also think it's possible with my combination that at freeway speeds the fans and full shroud may be restricting the airflow, I have seen in the past where people using a similar set-up have added a sprung trap door or two to allow more air through the radiator at speed, and I may experiment with that in the future. If I do I will add to this post. No issues at the dragstrip. I will add too that these salvage yard fans ran mostly full speed 10+ plus hours a day during Dragweek with no issues, but I plan on removing the motors from my spare Contour fan set and bringing them with as emergency replacements if needed in the future. The motors themselves don't take up much space.
