How the ugly kitchen sink grew up to be a beautiful fan shroud, with pix, instructions, etc.

So you've probably always wondered to yourself - self, how would one go about turning a kitchen sink into a fan shroud for their car?

Well friends, that's exactly what this useless DIY tech thread is for! Here's two versions of how to accomplish just that!

The short version: Get a kitchen sink and remove everything that doesn't look like a fan shroud, and bolt it to your car.

The long version:
As a little background:
In my 65 Biscayne, the factory setup was to have a big fat spacer between the core support and the radiator, and I also used a spacer to put the mechanical fan right up next to the radiator - but never had a shroud.

The incident:
When I replaced the water pump a couple weeks ago, it was late and dark and I didn't realize that the new pump stuck out a little more than the old one. When I went to reinstall the radiator, an interfering fan blade gashed the original radiator wide open.

The problem:
I ordered a new radiator from eBay and it came yesterday. It was by far the sexiest radiator I'd ever bought, but when I went to swap it into the car, it didn't fit where the old one went. It bolted up to the core support where the factory spacer was. This meant that my new radiator would be too far away from the mechanical fan for it to do any good without a shroud. This was Wednesday afternoon and I needed the car for 6am Friday morning - so ordering one wasn't an option. I knew I had to build a DEEP fan shroud out of something, I needed it FAST, and I needed to take crappy cell phone pics along the way.

So I took my new radiator to Meijer and put it in a cart, and together we walked through the whole store looking for "shroud-like" items. Cake pans came the closest, but none were deep enough, so dejected, we returned home in defeat. As I was washing my hands that evening, I looked into our kitchen sink and thought, "C'mon dummy - THINK! If you could think something about THAT deep, you'd be all set." That's when I remembered that I actually had an identical sink in the attic of my garage - and within minutes I was up there getting it.

So here's the photomentary of my version of how to go about making a fan shroud out of a kitchen sink. Your results may vary.

Get yourself a sink that looks like this:


I mean, let's be honest - how many of you looked at that and DIDN'T think - "Oh man that's totally a fan shroud!"?

Anyway - Measure the height of the cooling veins of your radiator, and the total width of the radiator, and mark where you want to cut up your sink accordingly:


To make things easier to handle, I cut it in half:
Not really wanting to handle hot stuff, I kept things cool with the nibbler.


Then you remove the inner portions of each basin, and tack them together:


Here is one of the removed portions. Try not to butcher them because you need them:


Back to the sink. Flip it over, locate the center point of your fan and draw a circle. You'll notice that you'll have enough width, but the fan diameter will exceed the sink height. At the point where your circle "drops off the edge", cut straight downward enough to give the fan clearance depth-wise. Cut your hole:


This is where the removed basin material comes into play. You can add this to the top and bottom of your shroud to keep the fan enclosed and the air flow direction controlled. Just hold up the add-on piece to where you want it on the sink and mark it with a sharpie, then remove material appropriately and weld the two pieces together. Here's mine with the top one welded on:


When you're done, mark your mounting hole locations, drill them out, and bolt it all together in the car:


Obviously, mine still needs a little bit of TLC to be as pretty as the radiator. It needs the welds cleaned up and that undercoating gunk wire wheeled off - and mebby a little shiny black paint, but it's FULLY functional and done enough to get me to the car show tomorrow morning - which was the goal. After testing it all out tonight - my car has never run so cool in the 7 years and 2 motors that I've owned it. So far, I'm SUPER happy with it - and even though I seriously doubt that any of you will actually NEED to turn a kitchen sink into a fan shroud - EVER, now you'll at least have a general idea of how to go about it.

I'm stoked because within a few short hours I went from having an old piece of junk in my attic to having a great working part on my car that I needed badly.

Thanks for the look guys,
John

Dude with all due respect that was decent stainless steel sink

Could you not have asked if one of us needed one before you cut it up?

it's not like everyone has one in their attics!

Next time you decide to butcher a decent stainless kitchen sink don't bother posting pictures.

Well would you look at that. That car has everything but the kitch... Er... Oh. There it is.

You need your own tv show or something, that is pretty cool.

This Guy's Garage.... This Old Car...., No I got it! Call it:

Hey, Watch This! with your host.... Bewber!

Or something to that effect.

Mike

Nice job,.great innovation,. it won't rust out either,.the fancy aluminum rad helps too,.

Great work John! Cleaned up a little it'll look like it's supposed to be there.

WOW! Whodathunk that you could do that with a sink... Pretty darn cool! I remember a friend of mine using a wheelbarrow for a recessed firewall in his Model A sedan... That turned out nice too. If you get the welds dressed up nice, I think it would look nice buffed up :-)

John with a little plumbing work, you can have hot running water!

Tom

NICE WORK!!

Yeah Sprocket, you thought YOUR sink was creative?

I have to say that is the craziest and most creative thing I've probably seen in a long, long time.

Quote :

Dude with all due respect that was decent stainless steel sink

Could you not have asked if one of us needed one before you cut it up?

it's not like everyone has one in their attics!

Next time you decide to butcher a decent stainless kitchen sink don't bother posting pictures.

Post of the year!

John, I'm sure you have figured this out by now, but 65 small blocks came with two different cooling setups. One with wide spacer and no shroud, and one with small spacer and a shroud. I believe the difference is AC gets the shroud.

Thanks for the love guys. I appreciate it.

You sir are an artist....... But I would like to see what you can do with a toilet.....ur we already saw that.......

I think I'll start a poll to see where public opinion lies regarding the cannibalization of a perfectly good stainless steel sink, and on whether people on this forum want to see this sort of thing again.

The old kitchen sink invention is alive (pun) and well.

The above is my secret to success. I have two. The glass is $800,ask me how I found out.

Anyway, A senior emblamer who I have learned so much from,lent me his back up when I broke the glass. I appreciated it so much I bought the machine from him.

When we completed the deal,he said "Lorne you know they are just sinks rite" ? I had no idea until I looked close at them upside down.

Here it comes................I heard the inventor made a killing from it.

You keep brains in that thing right???



And I recycled my old stainless sink that looked just like that....damn!

Abby Normal FTW!!!!

lornejay1 wrote:

All that for a stiff drink?

buickestate wrote:

lornejay1 wrote:

All that for a stiff drink?

/sp\ "all that for a stiff TO drink"

now that's ingenuity, really digging that DIY build. maybe next time you can show me how to create a radiator fan from scratch. again very nice work there still good this past few months?

Thanks. No way I'd build a fan though.