[Aaron Silidker]

I wired up the relay using the painless leads and the fan does not work. I get switched 12 volts to the hot lead for the fan and I grounded it solidly, but it does not run. Is it busted? Do I realy have to go through the hassle of sending to FFR for another? Anyone have on they would like to sell? Thanks!

 

[ORANGE CRUSH]

I do e-mail me with a offer.
Mike

 

[wnstwolf]

aaron..

not sure if this will work or kill it forever but can you take a lead from the battery and one to ground and "hot wire" the fan to see if it works at all?

I have painless and the fan install was quite straight forward.. Used their thermostat switch as the trigger, back to the gray wire in the dash area then that out to the + on the fan. other wire on fan to ground....

?

 

[oldguy668]

Do what wnstwolf said. Wire the fan directly to a battery to isolate the problem. It might be the fan, the relay, a bad ground or you. Eliminate the causes one at a time.

 

[Aaron Silidker]

The feed line from the realy to the fan is hot when the relay is activated. The fan is definetly getting power(12.5 volts) it just wont start.

 

[Richard Oben]

The fan and the relay have to be grounded. It is not wired correctly. BE PATIENT and think it through. Cheers Richard.

 

[Aaron Silidker]

Every other thing I have wired on the car from the painless harness has worked flawlessly, I have checked and rechecked this and it is right. The relay works as I have stated. I get 12 volts at the + wire for the fan, the fan ground wire is also grounded. Fan does not work. My meter says it should, I am assuming that the fan is shot.

 

[Dior55]

I don't get it. You have a problem. You ask a question. Two guys give you salient advice (as in K-I-S-S). But you say "no, I know what I'm doing, so that can't be it."

so why did you post the question in the first place?

 

[Aaron Silidker]

Well I thought maybe someone would have a tip, like this prolem happened to them. Maybe they would know how to fix the broken fan. Oh well, the fan is going to FFR on monday.

 

[CobraEarl]

I also dont understand why you would not take a long wire directly form the battery and run it around the car and jump it directly to the fan. 3 minute project and you know if its the fan or not.

BIPdeBOP, Done.

IF the fan does run, you figure out What other problem you have... If it dont, you send it back, double checked.

its VERY POSSIBLE to have voltage at a point in a circuit, but NO Current to back it up. Circuits Just Love to break down under High Current loads.

earl

 

[Aaron Silidker]

"its VERY POSSIBLE to have voltage at a point in a circuit, but NO Current to back it up. Circuits Just Love to break down under High Current loads."

Thanks earl, that is the kindof answers I was looking for. Now I will go out and figure out what the heck is wrong with this damn curcuit.

 

[Dennis Weinstein]

Aaron

The only other thing that I would add is, When checking for voltage make sure that you check for voltage using the same ground as the system that you are testing uses. So if the fan motor has a hot and a ground wire, back probe the hot and the ground and read voltage. If you don't have voltage then back probe hot wire and then go to and good chassis ground. If you have voltage now you know the problem is in the ground wire.I have been tricked before thinking that a part was bad because I had voltage to a chassis ground. Only to find out that I had a system ground problem.
I have found the best way to back probe a wire is to use a safety pin. Take the pin and pierce the insulation slide the pin between the insulation and the wire. It will usually stay just fine and the round eyelet is a good place to clamp a test lead on to.
Good luck

Dennis

 

[Aaron Silidker]

GOOD IDEA!!! I never even thought of that.

 

[gordont]

Aaron,

Is it working yet?

What did you do with the gray wire? In addition to the ground at the relay and the ground to the fan, the gray wire has to go to ground to make the thing run.

Tom

 

[oldguy668]

Aaron..you've been on this 2 days now. Have you run a hot and ground directly from the battery yet? It'll take only a few minutes and you can make a final determination as to the cause...bad motor or bad wiring. That would have been the first thing I did.

Happy motoring

 

[Aaron Silidker]

okay, now I am ofically confused! Yesterday I had 12 volts at the feed now when I retest it, it is gone. The fan sure damn works when connected to the battery. I feel like a doofus, the fuse was blown!!!

Is a 5 amp fuse enough? That is what was in there. I am going to install a 10 amp fuse.
Here is how I wired it, maybe this is the problem.
The radio switched line is the trigger for both the fuel pump and fan relays. Seems fine, both relays switch and this is low current draw.
The coolang fan switch wire is not connected to anything and oes from the front to the dash, I used this wire as the feed for the fan from the hot side of the relay. I used the cooling fan hot wire from the fuse panel as the hot feed for the relay. Is this fine? The feed line for the fan is only 18 gauge, is this enough?

 

[oldguy668]

The gray/white wire that painless provides is for the fan switch/relay activation. It's a 5 amp fuse for the low load the relay requires. Your fan should be powered by a #14 with a 20 amp fuse, which is not provided in the Painless harness.. The wiring should be as shown in the FFR manual, with the feed provided from the battery side of the starter solenoid through a 20 amp fuse, and the relay to the fan.

Fan Relay terminals:
#86 = signal (gray/white)
#85 = ground
#87 = 20 fused to battery+
#30 = to fan

The above setup provides constant fan operation thru the fan switch.

As an alternative, the Painless wire #904 is a 14 ga feed on the switched side of the fusebox. splice it to the #902 in the dash bundle, and you'll have your fan power in the engine compartment, as the #902 terminates there to run the AC compressor, which you probably don't have. Your fan will only run with the ignition switch on and the fan switch on. That way, you won't forget the fan on and kill the battery.

[ August 25, 2002, 12:53 PM: Message edited by: oldguy668 ]

 

[paul burchett]

Aaron, I don't think a ten amp fuse will be enough to power the fan. I check mine with an ammeter. If I remember correctly it pulled 12-15 amps to start, then dropped to 6-8 amps once the fan was running.

 

[Aaron Silidker]

That is how I have it wired up oldguy. I think the painless feed for the relay is too low. Is it alright just to run this cicuit as a 15 amp one?

 

[Aaron Silidker]

Fan works now, just took a bigger fuse. Oh well, time to go sit in a corner for not investigating the simplest electrical problem first.