Date:         Tue, 22 Aug 2000 16:33:47 -0700
Reply-To:     Bill Transue <thetrans@earthlink.net>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Bill Transue <thetrans@earthlink.net>
Subject:      Radiator Fan woes [Westy Syncro '87], continued
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

Hi gang:

Still having a devil of a time trying to fix my radiator fan problem. If
anyone can answer some or all of these questions, it would be most MOST
appreciated!

What I've done so far: a) tried jumpering the plug. No fan comes on. b)
Changed the relay and tried jumpering again. Still no fan.

1) The radiator fan has two posts, presumably positive and negative. If I
apply 12 volts to the posts, the fan should come on right? I tried this
using wire leads from a battery charger. When I placed the wires on the
posts, nothing came on. Occasionally, I would hit something (side of the
posts perhaps.. it was very hard to see from underneath) and the fan would
whir. It is possible that the positive wire  crossed the negative post, and
the negative wire was somehow grounding, causing the fan to come on?

Most confused. In any event, should direct juice applied to the posts on the
fan motor cause the fan to come on?

2) If the fan & relay & fuse are OK, what else is there to check? All the
wiring looks intact. The only other work that's been done recently was the
installation of an in dash receiver. I can't imagine that there's any wires
that far up that would cause a problem.

3) I'm still confused as to how my engine temperature can swing so much,
after a long history of staying dead center in the middle of the coolant
warning (blinking) light. When I drive, the engine temp goes way low. stop
in traffic, goes way way up. If I had low coolant, wouldn't this be a
symptom of why the gauge reads as it does? Would low coolant affect how the
temp is sensed and affect when the fan comes on?

As part of my work on this problem, I topped off the system and bled the
radiator (raised up per Bentley) up front. I let it go until all the
sputtering was basically gone... by then it had started to overheat and
bubble over :((

Thanks for any help at all.. I'll keep on pluggin!

Bill