Thread: Thermo fans

I looked at fitting the falcon fans to a rangie with 300Tdi radiator and the bottom hose interferes with one of the fans.

Originally Posted by PAT303

I've just joined this forum and like all other good stuff wished I'd done it along time ago.Anyway I wanted to now has anyone run there defender with electric fans instead of the clutch fan?I took mine of and went for a run and the motor had so much more pickup it wasn't funny.I was thinking of putting the falcon twin fan setup on mine and wanted to know if anyone else had tried it.Buy the way the engine temp did not go past normal without the fan on.No hills or load on the drive around. Pat

I had an 89 Range Rover, When I bought it the clutch fan was stuffed. I decided to go down the twin thermo fan route. I bought twin 14 inch fans, a thermotiner and put them on. I did make an aluminum shroud fro them to sit on.( You must put a shroud on for the fans to be working to full potential).

The thermos only work fro about 20 to 30 seconds when sitting at lights and dont come on at all whilst driving.

They are defiantly worth while, I never had a over heating problume with it either. I had to adjust the fans a few time bacause they used to make it run to cold and would keep the chokes on.

You shouldnt have any problumes with it. Davies Craig does a whole kit or as you say the Falcon ones are also very good.

I reckon they are good ,but it depends on what you use the car for.

If you do NOT do much low range work in hot weather , or sand , or go to remote areas, or tow then they should be great. Also your radiator would need to be A1. New cars such as Falcons have aluminium rads which are more efficient than brass.
The reason a clutch fan drags a lot of power is the reason it is good. It sucks a LOT of air. I have read that a clutch fan drags about 7BHP. For an electric motor to push that much air would take about 400Amps.

Also I wonder if it drags that much at highway speed, as the air pushing through the fan would tend to reduce the driving requirement from the engine. I only tumbled to this when driving in Saudi, and I could hear the dry bushes in my aircon fans as they were driven by the speed of the car.
But around the burbs they are sure a drag. Every time mine roars away when I start up, I think about electrics.
Even the latest Cruisers, and I think Rangies, Discos etc use a clutch fan. Why? when electrics are used in just about every car now.
I would hate to be stuck on a sand dune somewhere with a crook relay or dying alternator.
On balance , I am sticking with my clutch fan, but maybe if I could have a quick switch system...BUT you never know when things are going to get nasty off road.
Regards Philip A

I can see were your coming from but it's a good way to gain abit of performance and economy for small outlay.The only place it might worry me is on the beach,but that's once in a blue moon as I find it boring.Maybe I might be the ginnea pig on this one and let everyone know how it goes.I grew up at Erina and now live in the Hunter,small world Pat

Gday
Im runing the twin AU coon thermo set up on my rangie and it works great did the swap when i put the near new rad in a few months back and now it runs maby too cool ive got the fans run off a termo switch that may be a bit out as the thing dosent even get past the white bit on my temp gauge and the heater air is only just warm .....

A few points: There are no traffic lights where I live and not a lot of traffic:
On our old ED Falcon wagon I removed the clutch fan and ran that car for about a year without any fan, without any problems. The car felt a lot more responsive without it.

I read somewhere in the Land Rover world that the Disco1 and RRC use a clutch fan designed for traversing the Sahara in summer. Which may be a bit of overkill, unless your doing or deserts.

I have a Disco1 V8 and the fan was off for a week a while back (mongrel of a job) and had no problems, but I wasn't caught up in traffic; and a long beach run, in that week, saw the temp gauge only just get past the halfway point.

I think the manufacturers probably put them on (clutch fans on big 4wds), as an insurance policy, for them and for the user traversing the Sahara....

I do agree with the idea of very heavy use and electrical systems...

more things to fry when you dont want them to.....

GQ

I run AU falcon fans on our Rangie, and it spends all of its life in low range in hard terrain and has never let me down. The beauty of the falcon fans are the cost and they are wired seperatly. I have had 1 relay play up but it coped ok on 1 fan untill a relay was sourced. The biggest problem I have had is with the temp control units. I used to run the "Davies Craig" unit but the Isuzu shook 2 of them to pieces. I now run a "Pacet" electronic unit from the UK and it is superb. As with any cooling issues you cant beat a good radiator as well, like others have suggested.

Justin

I run AU falcon fans on my County...it has a fuel injected 3.9 V8.
I installed them because the viscous unit was playing up and needed replacing.
They run off a single thermo switch, but are otherwise wired completely independently. After some reading about AU fans, I found that they can pull over 20AMPS EACH on startup, so you need to ensure you use wiring that can cope.
I've installed a 3-way switch, so the options are 1)thermo control, 2)OFF (for river crossings) 3) ON.
My 65AMP alternator copes...just! It has a hard time at idle if the air-con is on, and the headlights are on, and the thermo's turn on....a higher output Alternator is on the cards.
Making sure you fit them to the radiator properly is important. I spent a good amount of time making sure they fit with no gaps. The AU shroud fits on the County radiator perfectly after some modification ie hacksaw and grinder.
I bought my fans brand new off Ebay for one third the price of genuine units.

Cheers
Andre