Nearly Overheated el Mach Juan today, ticking fan.

[Gameboy_J]

Soo, to make a long story short as possible, the car has been sitting a lot lately. The battery (which I start every two/three weeks if i'm not driving it) was so dead it wouldn't hold a charge even after 16 hours on trickle charge and another hour on 40a. I swapped it with another battery and proceeded to head into town (30min each way). I made a stop at my bank, everything seemed fine. I headed back down the road and noticed my a/c went hot on deceleration...took a look at the temp gauge and it was 3/4 towards H. I pulled into a parking lot, popped the hood and noticed a terrible ticking noise...loud. I immediately shut it off and left the hood open hoping to dissipate the heat. After a half hour I could finally open the coolant cap without scolding myself......and topped it off with some coolant I bought from a nearby gas station. I started the car and after about 5 min the gauge started to move towards H again so I shut it off and called AAA for a tow back home. It sounded like a blade on the fan had broken and was making a "tap" noise as it spun.

What might have caused it to break and do that (assuming my guess is correct)? Am I incorrect in my assumptions? What in the heck might be going on? T-stat ok? I have no clue about this stuff. Anyway, tomorrow I am pulling the fan out to inspect (seems like a straight forward removal, right?). Oh, the car has about 25k miles...that seemed odd to me, but it is still 7 years old. Also I have a custom dyno tune that seems to make my fan run a bit more often, but surely not enough to kill it.

If it is the fan, what do you guys recommend replacing it with? I might as well upgrade when fixing something. I plan to get "blown" eventually, but not in the near future. Thanks, guys!