123 hydro fan/shroud question
 

After a long put off project (over 2 years) I have fully committed to putting my 123 back together. It originally was split because of a drive shaft issue, primarily because of excessive wear at the drive shaft flex coupling, which threw the entire drive shaft badly out of balance. I have a new drive shaft, new flex disc, new fan, new roll pins, and had the worn coupler on the hydro side bored and sleeved.

With that story out of the way, here's the question: Is the fan intended to sit inside the shroud, or directly in front of it? If it has to sit inside the shroud to work properly, then I have other issues, because after adjusting the position of the fan shroud as much as I could manage the fan still overhangs the shroud enough that it would rub badly and possibly break.

If the fan is intended to sit in front of the shroud, as it appears the old one did, I should be ready to do the final assembly. I just don't trust that it was assembled correctly when I bought it, as I have no idea who performed work on it prior to my ownership.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

this is where the fan should be on a 123.It sits inside the shroud.

Thanks. That means it was installed incorrectly when I got it. It already had one of the newer plastic fans on it. How tight does the clearance need to be inside that shroud? Right now it seems like the clearance with the new plastic shroud is maybe 1/32nd when the fan is centered, which doesn't leave much room to play with. Looks like right now my options are either to try bending the fan shroud into a better position, or shaving a little off the fan blades to give myself some additional wiggle room inside the shroud.