Thread: Radiator fan conversion.

Originally Posted by superquag

Why not go the whole Nine Yards... convert to an electric 'water' pump...and waterless coolant. ?

Not for anything ..... No way If I thought I could rely on the engine driven fan I'd never have changed it. My biggest beef with the whole isssue, is why in the flying **** doesn't the temperature gauge show an accurate temperature Why the hell was it still showing dead center of the gauge "normal" when the engine was obviously over 100degrees when I was stuck in the traffic jam down in melbourne

While I was crawling under it.... I can see traces of coolant around the place. I've had the temp sender out, so I'm not sure if it's from that. However it sure does appear I have a weeping welsh plug on the back of the drivers side head where it appears access would be, um, "fun".

Have you ever needed to change the welsh plugs on one of these?

seeya,
Shane L.

Shane, did you know that the coolant temp indicator not moving issue was common across the old LR range (at least the ones I drove and may still be for all I know). I concur, complete idiocy for such an important gauge/feature.

Darn ! You foiled my fiendish plot... was going to let him stew (pun not intended..) for a while longer...and when he'd gone utterly insane...would step up and offer him $50 for the lot.! (Car AND extras...)
- Would make a very cheap set of fans for me !!!

When the needle moves 'north' of it s usual resting place, you're supposed to panic/shut down/run away screaming that All Is Lost....

Mind you, on one occasion I did see the gauge travel to nearly 90%, pause, wiggle a bit and eventually wander back down to Home... so yes, it IS possible for it to....move.

However, if you insist on ...'Knowing' what is going on in the Engine Room, then be advised that there are Therapies, though your private health insurance may not cover the gap...

Until then, here's a useful 'Band-Aid'. maybe not as quick to react as a (jap?) TEMP gauge, but YOU can choose the area you wish to monitor.

Engine Watchdog TM1 Temperature Sensor Gauge LOW Coolant Alarm Temp Recorder | eBay

the blurb tells me that it does other things as well, and price is indicative for this class of gadget.

This is another, somewhat classier looking one... And $40 better too.

Auto Digital Gauge Engine Alarm Overheating Protection | eBay

EDIT:- If we want to feed your addiction (to 'knowing'...as compared to living in blissful ignorance) go here and check out the seller's Other Items.... Must admit to salivating over some of them...

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/EGT-PROBE...kAAOSwhcJWMc-M

So we headed down to the beach last weekend with the caravan ... only about 1.5 hours away. 10minutes out of geelong the boss women starts saying "we can't go through the middle of town... the car will overheat" .... On and bloody on .... "What the hell do you mean, why would the car overheat ? .. it rarely gets to working temperature let alone hot".

So we hit the traffic lights in the middle of geelong .... and I watch the temperature gauge climbing .... You must be bloody kidding me ... It's at 110degrees by the time I can get off the road. I frantically pop the bonnet as I can hear the fans aren't running. I snip the wiring to the temp sender and frantically strip and twist the wires together before this all ends badly ......... and breath a sigh of relief as the fans burnt to life. Who'd have thought it ... both contacts in the temperature switch must have died leaving me with no high or low speed fans.

I start to lower the bonnet and the damn fans stop So I frantically chase the wiring back through the relays ... and across to the battery. How the hell can they not be working ?? there is two fans ... even if one died, I'd have the other one runnig ... I happen to touch to bump the self resetting circuit breaker wired into the fans ... and the damn thing bloody near burned me ... BINGO ... Why in the hell did I use one of those evil, unreliable devices here. I quickly snipped the wires off and joined them to hear to fans burst to life ... and watch the temp gauge plummet down to 75degrees.

If you have any of those bloody circuit breakers on your car. I urge you to remove them and fit proper fuses. The mongrel things must derate massively if used in a hot environment. So a 40amp circuilt breaker will trip at 10amps if it's sitting beside a hot radiator and engine.

seeya,
Shane L.
PS: The "I told you so" and "Why don't you get a decent car like everyone else" haven't stopped yet

Be careful here. These fans can pull a lot of current on start. I have changed from Ford to V8 Commodore on my RRC ( VE I think). The wiring run is short and I use heavy cable. I initially used a circuit simiar to yours and the fuses continually blew. I borrowed a high quality clamp metre and to my surprise they each pull 65amps on start and each draws 25amps continous.
You need to measure the start current and continous current. The circuit and fuses need to be beefed up otherwise it may let you down at the worst time.

I also remove the condenser fans - they are useless and move very little air - but obstruct an enormous amout.

Althogh nit a RRC, I know this from observing coolant temp changes on my P38 in Brisbane traffic - manually tripping both condenser fans to on from within the cabin does nothing to the cooant temp or the oulet temp from the radiator. I have accurate guages measuring both. I can assure you they do hothing but just make noise. They are simply a totally inadequate backup if the main engine driven fan cooling fails. Actually they are not a backup because from the data I have observed you will still overheat in the event of a failure of the main cooling fan/ belt drive.

Originally Posted by peter51

Be careful here. These fans can pull a lot of current on start. I have changed from Ford to V8 Commodore on my RRC ( VE I think). The wiring run is short and I use heavy cable. I initially used a circuit simiar to yours and the fuses continually blew. I borrowed a high quality clamp metre and to my surprise they each pull 65amps on start and each draws 25amps continous.
You need to measure the start current and continous current. The circuit and fuses need to be beefed up otherwise it may let you down at the worst time.

I also remove the condenser fans - they are useless and move very little air - but obstruct an enormous amout.

Althogh nit a RRC, I know this from observing coolant temp changes on my P38 in Brisbane traffic - manually tripping both condenser fans to on from within the cabin does nothing to the cooant temp or the oulet temp from the radiator. I have accurate guages measuring both. I can assure you they do hothing but just make noise. They are simply a totally inadequate backup if the main engine driven fan cooling fails. Actually they are not a backup because from the data I have observed you will still overheat in the event of a failure of the main cooling fan/ belt drive.

You read my mind. I'm waiting on the post at the moment. I have 50amp maxi fuses on there way and 60amp wire. I'll redo it all. It should never pull huge startup current, and they fans should start on low speed first, and spool upto high speed from there ( if that makes sense). So we effectively have a "soft start" from stationary.

seeya,
shane L.

Now I may be wrong on this as it was a long time ago but when I fitted a manual switch for my electric fans on an RRC, they back fed into the air con relay and also turned the aircon compressor on.

I ended up fitting a diode to the energizing wire to the temperature switch to stop the backfeed. That was using the circuit for the original electric fans which use the temperature switch
Regards Philip A

Originally Posted by DoubleChevron

You read my mind. I'm waiting on the post at the moment. I have 50amp maxi fuses on there way and 60amp wire. I'll redo it all. It should never pull huge startup current, and they fans should start on low speed first, and spool upto high speed from there ( if that makes sense). So we effectively have a "soft start" from stationary.

seeya,
shane L.

I had the exact same problem with a 50 amp circuit breaker on my pos, mind you this was after 100 + thousand k's.

Pretty obvious what was wrong so I put in a 50 amp inline fuse instead, which powers both relays for the fans. All good.

Then noticed the fan I have running all the time with the engine running was somewhat intermittent and finally stopped altogether.

Replaced with a real EL fan motor which fitted perfectly in the fake shroud.

Uncrimped the failed fake motor to see why it had failed, to find a 4 brush set up inside. The brushes had just seized in their holders and weren't even half worn................this is after running all the time while the motor is running for over 100 thou.

Cleaned them up and crimped the motor back up, connected it to power and away it went. So now I know I have a good spare.

It could be a coincidence but I got the impression at the time that the failing motor had been the cause of the breaker tripping.

I also know now that one should never use breakers for this type of application.

cheers, DL