Club 80-90 Forums

1984 1.9Petrol water-cooled.

Just picked up a ‘new’ van and noticed a fuse out of its holder. As soon as I put it back in, the radiator fan kicked in and wouldn’t stop. I’ve dropped the front lower grill and it is plugged into the thermostat (engine cold). I've unplugged it to check connection and changed the radiator thermostat but still the rad fan keeps on going.

Any ideas would be greatly received!
Brooksie

Brooksie wrote:1984 1.9Petrol water-cooled.

Just picked up a ‘new’ van and noticed a fuse out of its holder. As soon as I put it back in, the radiator fan kicked in and wouldn’t stop. I’ve dropped the front lower grill and it is plugged into the thermostat (engine cold). I've unplugged it to check connection and changed the radiator thermostat but still the rad fan keeps on going.

Any ideas would be greatly received!
Brooksie

hang on there's no thermostat in the radiator... temperature switch I think you mean
as for the fan on then I would suspect the fan is grounding somewhere.*

pull the earth wire off and see if it stops

E D I T :* not the case as the motor is switched live

sorry, Thermoswitch!!!!!!!!! - I changed that over with my other van.

I'll have a look for 'groundings'. I'm rather new to this, i'm guessing I look around the fan and cables for a point it is making contact with the bodywork?
Cheers

OOPS my mistake the motor is live feed the switch interrupts the power.

Ok
the thermo switch has wires coming out how many does yours have?

2 or 3
if it's two and the fan runs cold then the switch is stuck or broke

if it's three, and the thermo switch is known to be good disconnect the red wire from the run on resistor (near the fan) does it still run?
if so locate the second speed relay and pull off the red wire there too, this should stop the fan. If it does then the second speed relay is at fault.

Last night I had a look at the fuses and dropped the box to check the earth crowns – all looked ok and felt solid. I have the small ‘bakolight’ fuses? (single strip over a hard plastic/resin body) and when I have put the fan fuse (red) in, there have been a few small connecting sparks.

I traced the wires, bottom large red goes to the neighbouring fuse (next on the right), middle blue/red goes into a relay in the leisure battery and the top red disappears through the front, presumably to the fan.

The thing is, once I had put the fuse back in and reattached the box, I put on the ignition and NO FAN!!! Sorted, so I thought.
I tried the paperclip test – I have a 3 point plug. I popped the wire connector over the middle and bottom, turned on the ignition – nothing. Tried middle and top – nothing.

All of the other vans electrics work and no other fuses are broken.

This is why people with little knowledge shouldn’t go poking around – leave it to the professionals!!

TOnight I'll have a look for the fan wirings, and let you know Cheers Kev

This is why people with little knowledge shouldn’t go poking around – leave it to the professionals!!

And when there are no more professionals?

you are doing a good job... it just all gets in your eyes when you are trying to reach up to the fan connectors.

you're right there clarts.. get some safety specs or use you old frogmans goggles.

OK, goggle up I dropped the spare wheel and could see the fan connector. I undid it, placed a wire in the female middle (it has 3 contacts) and with the ignition on I touched the male pegs on the fan one at a time. Nothing. I changed the wire to a side female port and repeated, touching each male with the other end of the wire. Nothing, so swapped the female to the last remaining port and repeated, and again nothing. My fan didn’t come on. Once again I checked the fuses. It was hard to tell which one was the live as I had a blue, yellow and green wire going in- I was guessing the middle one as it was the thickest.

I think I am going to have to ask a mate with a metre to come down and see whether it has power or not, or am I being a complete numpty and misunderstood the haynes test!

It`s probably the relay above the fuse box that has stuck on, happened to me the other day when off roading, the ignition off and fuse removed but fan continued to run. Worth checking or swopping over to a known good relay.

What a frustrating day! I tried again to check the fuses and relays, swapping them with my other bus. I then started her up and ran her for 20 minutes or longer with the heater blowing- nothing- temp gauge didn’t go near half way.

I then ran a wire from the battery to the fan plug. I noticed that the wires had been taped, and hey presto, someone else has done this before me! I connected the live to the red / blue wire- nothing. Then to the brown wire- nothing.

There was also a weird device attached to the front that I realise now was to test the thremoswitch. They plugged the two spade connectors into the switch terminal to make it complete and then tested the fan – I think!

So I cannot make the fan come on. It turns OK and completes a circuit when I test it underneath, but put power to it and nothing- what am I missing / doing wrong! I’ve even checked the large fuse in the engine compartment!

I realised that I have no power to the fuse. Next door either side and the other are fine, but the fan fuse has no power. If I put power to the fuse, I could hear a whirring sound up in the front passangers area-it lasted for about 5 seconds and stopped, but repearted when I put power to the fuse. It wanst the washer bottle motor.

Given up for the night, cold, frustrated and dirty.

But if you owned an A reg 84 petrol hightop in ‘Tan’ in the past year and came from the Glastonbury / Cornwall area, I’d love to speak to you just to find out what you tried! (There was a club 80-90 sticker when I bought it off a Scot in Brighton- what colourful lives these van lead.)

After searching the wiki I've given up and fitted a manual switch on the dash. At least I have a fan now- will just have to keep an eye on the guage. Cheers for your advice gents, much appreciated.

where did you get the thermo switch from?

My van sat on the drive with a blown engine - an 88 1.9 petrol.
Interestingly enough, my battery was flat again, so could be working on the theory that whatever is pulling power from the battery without ignition could be the same thing that is making the fan go 'live' bad wiring? Will take out all of the fuses and pop them back in one by one tomorrow and check battery voltage.

I think it may well be linked
and it might be a good idea to get a new switch from GSF.
you can get lower temp ones that make the first speed fan come on earlier