Fan Blade destroyed while driving

[blackpawn5]

I was driving home tonight, when I hit my favorite stretch of just strait road, so I decided to go all out with a full tank of gas, and see what I could do. As soon as the overdrive hit, bam, i thought my transmission had failed, everything shifted fine. I checked under the hood and there were about 6 pieces of fan blade everywhere. I dont know how it happened or anything, anyway does anyone have expierence with replacing a fan blade? if so how do i go about doing so? and if anyone has any insight as to just hopw this happned, that would be appreciated

[Jehu]

Plastic + 17 years of heat and stress= kablam-O!

[colo525i]

Not too hard to replace, just tight quarters against the radiator if you don't remove the whole fan clutch. The fan is held on with 3 allen bolts 6mm or so? maybe smaller. Make sure also that the exploding fan didn't ruin your fan shroud or poke any holes/bend fins in your radiator.

[JoshsE34-M50]

I lost two blades when I had serpentine tensioner probs. My problem seemed to be caused either by:
1. The idler pulley bearings failing, causing the pulley to fly down behind the shroud, breaking the blades/ripping the belts

2. The tensioning strut failing (11281717210), coming apart, losing its dampening fluid, causing the belts to twist in and around the pulleys and fan, ripping the pulley from its center hub.

3.The belt breaking, twisting around the idler pulleys at high speed, riping one pulley off the hub, which then flyew around, breaking the blades.

I had ball bearings and the outer ring of a pulley laying in the valence the radiator fits into, a fan with two fewer blades, a climate control tensioner separated with oil leaking, and no traces of any belt anywhere. Also found that fan clutch was very worn and sloppy.
Moral of the story is check the condition of the belts, idler pulleys, "tensioning struts," fan clutch, and anything else in the setup that can fail. I, too was lucky it did'nt wreck my new radiator, and it happened at the end of a straitaway, too. Good luck.

[RallyD]

http://www.bimmer.info/forum/showthread.php?t=32968&highlight=spread+parts+road