Hi all I think my cooling fan sensor is faulty the Haynes manual stated it was top left of rad but mine is actually located near bottom of road in a pig of a place to get at. Any know how on best way to get at and change the offending item please my fans were working until a couple of days ago and it's been suggested this sensor is the likely suspect for them not working now any way to test please. As always thankyou in advance.

Does the car have A/C? If it does, and that's working, it will switch the fans on independently of the radiator thermoswitch when running, so that could help narrow things down.

One or two radiator fans on this car?

Have you checked the fuses on top of the battery (including the blade fuses under the cover to the nearside of the stripfuses)? Strip fuse no.5 is the high speed fan running, blade fuse no. 8 is the low speed, I think.

 

 

Hiya yes it has aircon and two fans I tried it running today after 20 mins on idle the temp gauge went up high on gauge and fans did not kick in I did not know those fuses were for fans I was trying to find out where the fan fuses were I will check them now thankyou I think there are 3 fuses on mine I wondered what they were for. I think the aircon is working the switch is lighting up when pressed but I'm about to have it regassed so cant tell from temp alone

 

Edited 28 August, 20196 yr by Stewartasb

If the A/C is chucking out any cool air it should be kicking the rad fans into life shortly (like seconds in this weather) after being switched on, if the fuses and fans are fully working. 

 

 

Switch is got at from underneath with a deep 30 mm socket. 

The (dual) thermoswitch, apart from leaking - and just needing a gentle tightening up to fix, is usually pretty reliable on the A/C-equipped cars as it only switches  small currents to trigger the fan controller relays, rather than the full fan current. It would be pretty much my last suspect.

Just checked the 3 fuses on the secret fuse box lol 9,10 and 11 all are okay and air con is kicking out cold air but fans not coming on 😥

All I know is fans were working a few days ago as was in traffic and heard them kick in 🤔

You did check the big strip fuses like you were told, they can crack almost invisibly.

When my fan stopped working last year it was the fan motor that had died. Don't test the switch/sender, test the fan. I checked by pulling its feed wires and trying to operate it direct (bypassing the fan switch) by wiring it up to a 12v battery being careful to avoid shorts. Cheapest replacement I could find was a new fan and rad combination from ebay. Fans by themselves were more expensive! The rad is still in the shed unused.

Edited 28 August, 20196 yr by LB123

Will give the strips a good look at tomorrow and see if I can test the fans will let you know thanks guys 👍

You are indeed correct one of the strips is broken nice one guys how do I fix this please as it looks like a single plate.

It isn't a single plate, undo nuts, remove broken strip and replace. Or just move the wire over to the unused one next to it.

Edited 29 August, 20196 yr by sepulchrave

OK, so blade fuse 8 (30A) was OK?, that does low speed operation of both fans.

Strip fuse 5 only does the high speed fan operation. So fixing that alone may not be the only issue.

 

Odd that there's no wire going to your ABS strip-fuse in position 6... The car does have ABS, right?

 

 

It was indeed the strip fuse all working now thanks all for your help 👍

1 minute ago, Stewartasb said:

It was indeed the strip fuse all working now thanks all for your help 👍

 

If you're sure...

Please read my previous  post.

It does not have abs mate and I think its all working I left it idling and put on air con and the fans kicked in after 10 mins is there a way to test if it is high or low speed going ???

I dont have a fuse in position 8 Wino only 9,10 and 11 😐

Edited 29 August, 20196 yr by Stewartasb

Just now, Stewartasb said:

It does not have abs mate

Oh, that explains that one!

 

Fans would kick in much sooner than that if the low speed was working, and run slower and quieter than what you're seeing.

Remove blade fuse 9 then (is it a 30A one?) and see if anything changes, I expect it won't, and this would show that the low speed is not working.  

 

 

That's weird, I've just double-checked the wiring diagrams, and the low speed fan fuse should be in position 8, can you get a good photo of just those fuses?

 

Comparing the position of the thick red wire on the right of your picture, with the one on this photo, I'd say yours is in position 8?

 

There's a (cheap) way to repair the common  failure that leads to no low-speed operation, lots of info via this thread: https://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/404143-radiator-fan-repair-courtesy-of-vortex-here-and-uk-mkiv-forum/

 

It's also possible that the relay inside the fan control module that switches the low speed on has failed, you could test for this by checking whether 12V gets to the middle pin of each of the 3-way connectors for the fans when A/C is switched on/working. If the 12V is there the fault is in the fans, if it isn't then the fault is the relay within the fan control unit or the 30 amp fuse feeding it (No.8).

 

You may prefer to leave things as they are, with just high speed working, but I suspect that strip-fuse may keep blowing, as the fans are gonna pull higher-than designed currents when going from stationary to full speed, rather than low-speed to full speed. You could try moving the feed wire onto the 50A unused strip-fuse in position 4 if you don't mind a bit of a bodge.

4 hours ago, Stewartasb said:

You are indeed correct one of the strips is broken nice one guys how do I fix this please as it looks like a single plate.

 

https://www.halfords.com/workshop-tools/garage-equipment/fuses-electricals-fixings/halfords-assorted-oto-strip-fuses-30-40-50-60-amp

That's handy Nige , the genuine ones are more than that EACH I seem to remember.

13 minutes ago, Wino said:

That's handy Nige , the genuine ones are more than that EACH I seem to remember.

 

I spotted them the other day