[RVT1KR]

Never had an issue with mine. It sits completely flush with the radiator. You didn't remove the little balancing clips off the fan blades did you?

I'm mounting mine up as we speak, do you have a picture of these balancing clips?

To the original poster if you find out any info to the problem please post up your findings. I should be up in running with my setup this week with the fans mounted completely flush with the radiator.

 

[RVT1KR]

I have the same fan style as the one pictured. I wired them up and ran them this afternoon as a pushers. Seems to be working just fine so far. I don't see any way possible there would be enough play in the blades to contact the radiator, at least on mine anyway. I'm guessing maybe a foreign object got in there as well. No "blade balancers" were on my fans either.

I haven't pulled the bike back apart, but I shoved my phone underneath to grab a picture. You can kinda see the area that's flattened.

No "blade balancers" were on the fan. You can see I fabbed the same style brackets as b.miller, just with a different orientation. The fan never came with that type of cage around the blades and honestly never really noticed it didn't.

The top lock nut is on as far as it would go, because that bracket was different than the others, and I only had those Stainless Steel bolts available at the time. The heads of the bolts were covered by the fan shroud and did not contact the radiator.