Thaddeus

Hey,

Driving around today, I had the A/C on. When the auxiliary fan came on, my system voltage dropped to 12V on the nose, instead of 13.5. I'm thinking that old fan is getting grunchy and drawing too much juice when it runs to overcome the internal friction. can I oil it, or is it a sealed unit that I must just replace?

Follow up question being, is there a cheap aftermarket fan that I can drop in as a replacement that will cut the mustard, as the stock fans run about 450 bucks... I searched on fans and just saw threads on replacing the standard belt-driven fan...

Thanks, I want to get this thing all squared away before some buyer comes to see the car...

Glen McCartney

Thaddeus, sent you a PM

j.kenzie@sbcglobal.net

I installed Carl's fan from 928 Motorsport. I am very happy with it.

http://www.928motorsports.com/parts/auxfan.php

Thaddeus

Well, my aux electric fan is definitely shot. I pulled it out of the car for a bench test... hooked it up to my 12V battery charger. I like using that because I can see how many amps something pulls.

It didn't start. So I unhooked the juice, moved the fan blades around by hand, and rehooked the juice. It started, but ran slowly, and the needle on the charger went from 0 to infinite to zero to infinite... there's a short in that motor, for sure, and about every third time it turns off it 'parks' in a dead zone where it won't run again.... and after about 6 test runs the little breaker in the charger popped.

Also: as the fan spools down, I can hear grunchy noises... bad bearings.

So that explains why my voltage dropped so severely once the A/C had been running awhile... it also explains what happened to my last alternator, I suspect the wild fluctuations between infinite resistance and an outright short were not good for the system...

Funny how one error condition can lead to all kinds of downstream effects/damage in a complex system.

Thaddeus

One upside: I suspect my A/C will work much better once I have a fan in place, since the old one clearly wasnt helping cool the system down at all.

928FIXER

It only helps the a/c when moving at slow speeds or stuck in traffic

Thaddeus

A friend of mine was going to give me a fan, but that fell through, so I picked up a 16 inch diameter Torq-Flo at Autozone for 45 bucks. It fit with only a little modification of its chassis (3 holes drilled, 2 mounting ears removed). The electrical plug even fit with only a little "persuasion", after I had reversed the wires in the fitting. It looks pretty darn good, I think, nearly stock, and works fine. It stands off from the condensor about 1/4 inch, so it will not rub. Also: the A/C does work better!



I do love a cheap fix... one tenth of what the stock replacement would have cost.

j.kenzie@sbcglobal.net

Nice!