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Wiring a switch for radiator fans


liberalswine
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First off, I totally suck when it comes to anything electrical! I developed a fear of handing electrical wiring work when I was electricuted when I was younger. Anyway, I have no decision but to wire up a switch for all 3 fans since only one fan seems to work at the moment, thus, my car tends to overheat easily even with a lowest degree thermostat.

 

Does anyone have a tutorial for wiring all three fans to a switch? I plan on running the wires through the firewall and hooking it up to a on/off switch straight to the battery. If anyone has a detailed tutorial (perhaps with pictures) for my dumba** that knows nothing about electronics, that would be most awesome. I know that electrical knowledge is a must, but I'm working on it. Thanks guys

 

Please don't flame me  :-X

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There are a couple wires going to each fan.  Use a test light hooked up to a ground and poke each of them until you find the one that turns the fan on.  That is the wire that needs to be ran to the swith.  The wire coming out of the switch must then be wired to a ground.  The fans are activated by a negative (ground) trigger.

 

Hope this helps.

 

ADAM

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  • 2 weeks later...
Use A RELAY!,Thats a lot of power to run through a switch,It will heat up.Do you still have AC?I used to have a switch to the batt in my 86 for fans.Forget to trun off and dead batt in no time.You can rewire with a relay so the fans get more power and wire the relay switch through the ignition so it turns off when the car is off or get a thermostat fo the fans.
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You'd probably be time ahead to find out why the other two fans aren't working. It's probably the sensors in the bottom of the radiator. They do fail, and sometimes the contacts get dirty. It'd be a lot more worry-free than having to watch the guage and hit the switch all the time. When I first got my '87 from a "mechanic" friend, he had the fans wired to switch. Only problem was he had them wired so the fans ran backwards. That's right, backwards. Pushing the air back towards the front of the car. In other words, fighting the incoming air as I was moving. Turned out the radiator was plugged solid on the bottom two or three inches and the sensors were never getting hot enough to trip the fans.  I just swapped the radiator and made sure the other sensors were fine. She's been good for several years now. Just food for thought.
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The stock set-up sucks.It's a lot better to use a relay and have both fans kick in when the first temp switch closes.Wire the high temp switch in with the other so if it fail it will kick on the fans.you could also hook it up with a relay and fire one up with the ignition and wire the two fan switch to the other fan. Being Cool is Being Safe, so be Cool and keep that motor safe.
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  • 3 weeks later...

the fan switches ground when activated, set up the switch as a ground, dont power it.  Ill take pictures and email them to you tommorow (give me email address)

mike

orionspop@hotmail.com

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You wire the temp switch to ground a realy ,rewire power for fan to relay,use the origunal fan power to turn on the relay.There you go your fans get more power/run better and you could also hook up a light so you know when the fans kick in.Don't hack it up,you want your fans to work,starquests don't like overheating.You should still test the fan switches first,if they don't work the friendly mitsubishi dealer has them.
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