Best Electric Fan Setup for 1st Gen?

[msmith65]

I've seen several threads on using a Chevy HHR fan in place of the stock setup, but no real success stories with the 1st Gen.

Has anyone made this work?

The problem I'm trying to solve is summer overheat when idling with a 4.0 auto and AC. Despite new (OEM) fan clutch, 11-blade fan, new water pump and hoses, heater core bypass, new radiator, several different coolant formulas, and of course ensuring the condenser is clean, this truck just can't take North Texas with the AC on.

 

[OneofMany]

I have not yet tackled this myself yet, however have installed a few electric fans in other vehicles. I have looked closely at things with this mod in mind. mounting the fan on the inside and making it a pull fan is probalby the best because of brackets and the trans cooler. I usually just wire it into an IGN+ so it comes onwhen the ignition is turned on, in TX you will likely always hve the ac on anyway so might aswell have it run like this. Just pull the fan shrould out, the old fan and clutch and intall the electric fan. On mine i noticed a lot of junk getting trapped behind the trans cooler/ in front of the ac condenser. you should check this on yours, i had all sorts of beasts nesting there.

 

[Roadrunner777]

This may be better covered in the modified forum.... one step up, one step over.

 

[Jason94sport]

Is it actually over heating? Or is the temp just raising when stopped due to heat soak?

 

[Roadrunner777]

A couple of obvious ones, I sure you took care of... thermostat and radiator cap?

 

[Maniak]

As others have mentioned.. You really shouldn't be overheating.

I can run our X with a/c on in 110F weather at idle and the truck doesn't over heat. I have a 180F thermostat in it and it never reaches over 195. Of course the a/c warms up some. At idle, on high with the truck cooled off inside (not cold, but not hot) the center vent temp will be at 60F on max a/c and the fan on high.

I'm using a Severe Duty Hayden fan clutch on our '92. It is a very tight fan clutch. I'd say it even hurts gas mileage on the freeway since it never slows down lower than IIRC 30% of shaft speed and when its tight its at 90%+ of shaft speed.

There have been a few attempts at an electric fan on a 1st gen but not many sucessful ones.

Zukman has one but I don't now if they have used it in the hot summer (Does it even get hot in San Diego?) and I don't remember which model mustang they took it from.

Rick tried a Black Magic fan and it could not keep up even with a manual transmission in the Phoenix heat.

I'm drawing a blank but someone tried a Chevy HHR fan (I have it here, sitting in the shed) and it didn't work well. I was planning on testing/comparing an HHR fan with a Contour fan and a Mark VIII fan but I haven't gotten the time.

As for a fan controller.. Personally I like the Hayden adjustable "bulb" style. Also, I put sensor/bulb near the bottom of the radiator. As I see it I want the Electric fan/radiator to try to cool the coolant as much as possible and let the thermostat control how much water to let through to control the heat.

I don't want the fan and thermostat competing for control of the heat as many of the controllers do that read the hot water temp (top of the radiator) instead of the output of the radiator.

I'm using that controller on our Tow rig (460 v8 in a 4x4 van) and I have it setup so it will even run if the van is off. That way if during heat soak it will cool the coolant in the radiator. That system worked really well last summer. I'm using a Mark VIII fan in the van but AFAIK, that won't fit in a 1st gen.

~Mark

 

[Roadrunner777]

Do you have symptoms of overheating other than the gauge?

 

[msmith65]

Is it actually over heating? Or is the temp just raising when stopped due to heat soak?

Gauge starts climbing not long after you come to a halt. It can take a drive-thru if the staff makes the burgers fast enough. But if we have to wait on the fries to cook, I have to circle the block to keep the gauge from going all the way to H.

So, no, it's not heat soak.

 

[msmith65]

Do you have symptoms of overheating other than the gauge?

AC gets balmy, and if I sit still long enough (which I've only let happen once, not paying attention), the engine will start to misfire as the gauge passes the L in NORMAL.

 

[msmith65]

A couple of obvious ones, I sure you took care of... thermostat and radiator cap?

Ah, don't be so sure. (!) I did replace the thermostat - twice, when I got a bad one the first time.

Guess I should try the cap, since that's cheap to replace.

Please pardon my ignorance, but in hot climes like ours (100+ summers with AC load) does a low-temp thermostat work better? And, is there one that fails "open" instead of closed? Seems I heard about that somewhere.

 

[msmith65]

I'm using a Severe Duty Hayden fan clutch on our '92. It is a very tight fan clutch. I'd say it even hurts gas mileage on the freeway since it never slows down lower than IIRC 30% of shaft speed and when its tight its at 90%+ of shaft speed.

I'd be OK with that since my wife only uses this Ex around town.

There have been a few attempts at an electric fan on a 1st gen but not many sucessful ones.... I'm drawing a blank but someone tried a Chevy HHR fan....

I read the HHR thread. Started out gangbusters and then it didn't cool well enough. That was really disappointing; I thought he was onto a good, cheap solution!

I was getting toward the same conclusion as you, so I appreciate your response. Perhaps stock is the least-worst option when all the parts are working right. I'll look hard at the Hayden clutch. I was under the impression that OEM was the most reliable, though.

 

[Maniak]

failsafe is the brand of thermostat that will fail open but your current issue doesn't sound like a thermostat since its only at idle.

I'm only using the 180F thermostat because I wanted extra headroom in the cooling system. It isn't "needed" but like you we are in a very hot climate and I wanted a little extra room before it was "over heated". This isn't a solution, it will just give you a little extra time before you reach bad temps. IIRC the 1st gen goes into closed loop at 170f so don't try to throw in a 165F thermostat as the ecu won't go into closed loop.

I would recommend separate coolant temp gauge and sending unit so you can know what your truck is really doing. I put ours in the heater hose coming off the upper intake so I could get the coolant temp coming out of the motor even if the thermostat was closed. The factory gauge shows higher than I like at 200F but since I have the after market gauge I can know its only 200F and not worry about it. Last time I saw 200F was when the fan clutch was getting weak.

Since I put in this latest Hayden Severe duty fan clutch I haven't seen the temp get over 190 (haven't been in a day much over 100F since the last replacement).

Since it is only having issues at idle I'd be looking at plugged radiator (internal and externally including the space between the condenser and radiator) or raw air flow. To check if its an air flow issue you can use one of really big fans and put it in front of the truck as you idle with the a/c on. If it still over heats its not the fan/fan clutch. If it runs normal temp then your not getting enough air flow through the radiator.

~Mark

 

[Tbars4]

..A couple quick things to add here..

..When your X is warmed up shut it off and try to spin the fan..If it spins freely or somewhat freely you are in need of a new fan clutch..

..Another item that often gets overlooked is the water pump...It is somewhat common to loose the fins on the water pump resulting in poor circulation without the water pump showing the normal "weeping" signs of failure..

..and heater core blockage can give the same results...Sometimes watching a total drain of the radiator can give you a better insight as to what is going on in the cooling system..

Edit:..I did read your first post and added this info for others who might view this page and are looking for other things to check first..

..But for your problem I would still do the quick fan check and when was the last time the radiator and heater core flushed?

..often times one puts parts on but they don't take the time to flush and inspect the system..

 

[Jason94sport]

Please pardon my ignorance, but in hot climes like ours (100+ summers with AC load) does a low-temp thermostat work better?

In my experience in South FLA yes. The X does run a bit better when the AC is on(all year mostly).
What about with the AC off? does it do it then? It could be a AC issue causing an abnormal load.

I don't care about heat. Don't need it. So I have the heater core bypassed totally & have the max AC blend door tied closed so it's max AC at all times.

 

[OneofMany]

When the A/C is switched on the idle is supposed to increase slightly. Mine does barely, idk for sure if its supposed to be controlled by a computer. Low idle rpm may be cause for low water pump output. However the symptoms you describe are classic for a malfunctioning fan clutch. Also you should be in park as much as possible to reduce the load in the engine. In theory a hot trans can lead to a hot engine also. I think on these the trans fliud runs through the radiator then a trans cooler. test to see wether the problem still exists when idling higher, say 1k; listen to the fan as the engine heats up to make sure it is actually engaging in hi. To eliminate the trans from interfering test with the trans cold.

 

[msmith65]

Have any of you found a fixed fan for this application?

I'm thinking, since the truck rarely goes on the freeway, I can sacrifice some high-speed efficiency for better around-town cooling.

 

[Tbars4]

..The Severe duty fan Maniak mentioned is probably the best fan out there for cooling our vehicles..

..The fan is so good I refer to it as obnoxious as I have one in my X too...My mileage on hwy is about 17 plus but around town it is about 8-9 mpg..

..On the plus side, this fan does cool better and it definitely dropped my auto tranny temps down on hot days from 185-195 to 165 or lower depending on several variables..

 

[Carguy3J]

Just wondering, does anybody see a problem with running an oem Volvo e-fan ( I think it came out of a late model V70 or something - it was turbo/intercooled whatever it was) thru a 40 amp auto-resetting circuit breaker?

I could't find an inline fuse holder for anything over 20 amp. I see some guys were talking about 90 amp start-up loads for the Taurus fans. Would a brief spike, that high, trip a 40 amp breaker / melt a 40 amp fuse, or would a brief start-up load be ok, as long as it settled down to 15-20 amp running?

 

[msmith65]

Well, y'all have convinced me. I'm about to pull the trigger on the Hayden Severe Duty fan clutch. Maniak's link goes to a Hayden 2793, which looks right. However, in the Rock Auto specs, the description includes "reverse rotation." I'm confused by that. Is this the right clutch for my 1993 4.0 with auto and AC? The parts catalog says so.

 

[arco777]

Just wondering, does anybody see a problem with running an oem Volvo e-fan ( I think it came out of a late model V70 or something - it was turbo/intercooled whatever it was) thru a 40 amp auto-resetting circuit breaker?

I could't find an inline fuse holder for anything over 20 amp. I see some guys were talking about 90 amp start-up loads for the Taurus fans. Would a brief spike, that high, trip a 40 amp breaker / melt a 40 amp fuse, or would a brief start-up load be ok, as long as it settled down to 15-20 amp running?

Inline fuse holders are usually just limited by the fuse you put in them. When I use a fuse inline, I use a large style Maxi fuse like the big ones in the power distribution box. Inline holders are available for them in many wire sizes including 6ga, but I just solder my wires directly to the fuse blades (with heatshrink over them) to save money. Besides, a fuse holder is just a glorified set of (lame) spade connectors.

The Taurus and Mark VIII fans have a ludicrous draw spike on the high speed circuit when you try to spin them from stopped. The spikes in my experience don't blow 40A fuses or breakers, but they are hell on fan controllers and even most relays. The spark of connection just fries the internal contacts. A better solution would be to start the low speed circuit (if you have a 2-speed fan, some of those are and some aren't) or run it continuously and then engage the high speed circuit. That way you minimize the initial spike and transition (step) it into the high speed circuit. I forget the name but there is actually a controller out there made for the Taurus/MarkVIII fan that does exactly this, using 3 relays.