Air Con Condenser Fans

**The Fish** · 5th September 2007, 07:22 PM

If have seen a few threads on here about people having their condenser fan motors packing it in but couldn’t find any with a complete build (including photos) for replacing the fans. I had this same problem in my Disco 1997 300Tdi and with the help of what was written in other threads attempted this myself on the weekend. I decided to do the work myself as I had been quoted $300 each for the 2 fans plus fitting. I managed to do the job for $100 and less then a days work. Below is how we went about fitting the replacement fans.

The fans used to replace the Land Rover ones were Davies Craig units (dcslx10 available from places like autopro). I used the existing wiring so just bought a short fan assembly and saved myself a few extra dollars.

Old on left new on right

1. Ensure they have actually had it by running a wire straight from the battery to the fan motor. If the motor has had it remove.
2. Cut your mounting bracket to length and fit to the old fans holes. In this case I used 50x2 mm aluminum cut to a length of 270mm.
3. Place the new fans in front of the bracket and mark the new fixing holes and the cut out for the fan blades. The purpose of the cut out is to ensure the fans can provide the maximum amount of air flow.

4. Fix the fans to the bracket and mount the bracket to the existing holes. Connect any wiring and ensure that the fans run when the air con is switched on.

All done and mounted to the car

I hope people find this helpful and if any more information is required please just ask or do a search for condenser fans.

**rick130** · 6th September 2007, 06:42 AM

maybe you should have added it's for a Disco (although it's pretty obvious

) as a Defender condenser fan (yep, fan, there is only one) is a Davies Craig 10" unit.

**Leo109** · 6th September 2007, 06:50 AM

Great stuff, Fish. Thanks for going to the trouble of posting all this. It's inspired me to resurrect my 3 year old project to replace my dead fans...

**The Fish** · 6th September 2007, 06:52 PM

Yeah thanks for pointing that out rick130 the car is actually a Disco 1997 300Tdi. Go for it leo109 the job is actually really easy. I thought it would have been more work then it was. The thing that took the longest was pulling the bar and everything in front of the fans off and putting it back on.

**njz** · 6th September 2007, 07:20 PM

Thanks for the great write up.

**Leo109** · 7th September 2007, 07:35 AM

Originally Posted by The Fish

The thing that took the longest was pulling the bar and everything in front of the fans off and putting it back on.

Just by the way, I've never had to remove the "bar" - bumper bar or bull bar, I presume your mean?

I unclip the LH indicator, remove the screws from the top of the grill, remove the one screw/nut and slide out the panel under the LH headlamp, then manoeuvre the grill out of it's bottom clips. There's then plenty of access to the fans etc. I developed this technique when I had the grill out several times while fitting my Ford boot release solenoid to operate the bonnet latch, via a pushbutton on the driver's side of the dash...

**waynep** · 7th September 2007, 08:10 AM

That's very well explained - moderator maybe should bump this to Projects and tutorials ..

I have a question though - how do you know the fans are not working properly ? ie Should they always be running when the aircon is engaged ?

I want to check mine out.

**The Fish** · 7th September 2007, 03:45 PM

Originally Posted by waynep

That's very well explained - moderator maybe should bump this to Projects and tutorials ..

I have a question though - how do you know the fans are not working properly ? ie Should they always be running when the aircon is engaged ?

I want to check mine out.

I wasn't sure if it should have gone in Trojects and Tutorials and I'm happy to have it moved if need be.

Waynep from what I have read the condenser fans should run whenever the air-con is switched on and they will also turn on if the engine temp exceeds a certain temperature (100 odd degrees celius from memory). This is definetly the case with mine, although it hasn't been hot enough to find out if they will turn on when the engine gets to hot.

To check that the fans were working I had to cut the existing wiring as they were sealed really well on the exisiting fan. Someone else might know a way of connecting the wire from the battery without cutting the wire to the fan.

**Leo109** · 8th September 2007, 07:52 AM

Originally Posted by The Fish

Someone else might know a way of connecting the wire from the battery without cutting the wire to the fan.

As Fish said, the fans should run whenever the air-con is on or the coolant temp exceeds 100 C.

The fans can be disconnected at dificult-to-access plugs and sockets above each fan, under the panel the holds the bonnet latch.

**Bushwanderer** · 8th September 2007, 11:50 AM

Nice write-up.

I don't want to "throw a spanner in the works" but it looks like your replacement fan won't push as much air as a LR one. Did you compare "throughput" of the fans?

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