So my water pump is leaking like a stuck pig from the gasket. Planning on just changing out the whole water pump because... why not, pretty much the same price for a gasket kit as new pump + gasket. So I figured this is a good time to swap to an electric fan? What year taurus am I looking for that is a near direct bolt on? There are a LOT of taurus's in my local junkyards so I have plenty to choose from usually. Also, is there anything else that is important to change while doing the water pump?
Here the tech thread: http://mmb.maverick.to/showthread.php?t=43847 The 3.8L V6 Taurus fan (found in late 80's wagons and sedans) pulls an estimated 2000cfm. Well suited for cooling modified V8's. Rick
I'm a little irritated that I spent an hour yesterday using the search feature on the site and that tech article NEVER came up. Thank you for the link. In that link it said a 100 amp alternator was necessary. I pulled my alt out of a 93 taurus with a 3.8l enine, wouldn't that make it good enough? Meh I guess I'll really get into this soon.
My Taurus fan is from a '93. The alternator really takes a hit when high speed comes on. I installed a 150 amp 3G alternator. If you buy one of the aftermarket "soft start" fan controllers that slowly ramp up the fan speed you can get away with a smaller alternator. I just used relays to control mine because that's what I had laying around. Air flow is over 4000 cfm, it's like a friggin hurricane when it turns on. It fit right on my radiator without much "adjusting" but my radiator is a 26 x 19 Griffin. And the fan with shroud is about 5" deep, IIRC. Required some work to make it fit. Many are using Contour dual fan setups that are a little more shallow.
Thanks good to know. Maybe I need to wait until I'm not on a junkyard alternator, then again I don't have a/c or stereo or anything. so maybe I can get away with it. A soft start controller isn't hard to do at all either. I was already working on the controller box I'll just expand my circuit.
Here's a pic of mine. You can see I removed the part of the radiator support that the radiator normally mounts to. It barely cleared that way but then last year while I had the motor out I also slotted the motor mounts and moved the engine back 3/8". This is in a '70, yours might be a little different.
as stated in the tech article, a soft start is not what is needed. the low side has to come on first to get the fan up to speed then the high side, when called for just ramps up from there...no surge/spike. this...Volvo twin fan relay works like that...is has a sensor wire to the low temp sensor. then the wire to the high side sensor shuts the low side off a split second after the high side comes on... it has the 3 wires for the fan, high/low sensor wires and power/ground wire connections with it... these come from...1994 Volvos with twin e-fans. you can as I did, get the relay new...$55...just get the wiring pigtails from a '94 Volvo. ...Champion 3 row alum. radiator...Taurus fan...347 with A/C... ...Frank...
Yep, that setup works good if that's the way you want the fan to operate. It's just not what I wanted. I only run one adjustable temperature sensor and the fan turns on high if the ignition key is in RUN, low if the key is off to cool things down when I park.
Eh, I build my own control systems. Figure I paid enough money for the knowledge to build them I should benefit from it in my personal life. I foresee a system that runs the fan on low when the car first starts up, switches to high when I'm idling the engine (low RPM state using the tach signal) cuts off the fan when in a high rpm state (or puts it back on low not sure yet) and then when the engine shuts down runs the fan on low for a few minutes. This may be a project that gets pushed back though. Seems like there is more to putting the fan on in the way I want than just slapping it onto the radiator and hooking it up to a relay.
I used what the Volvo engineers went to school for. the Volvo setup is more a...controller...than just a relay. you'll be good as long as at no time does both low/high get power at the same time for any length of time...
I may put it in and only power up the low power setting until I finish my control box. And I hope the Volvo Engineers aren't like most of the automotive engineers I know. As soon as I start talking electronics and control system theory their eyes roll back in their heads until I get back to mechanical control systems. Except I'm sure they are because I have yet to drive in a Volvo with fully working electricals.
