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Kenlowe wiring confusion


mcc1979ian

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Evening gents, I installed a kenlowe into my 300tdi conversion a while back but as yet it has never came on although the engine has overhear twice. I've now purchased a x eng switch to replace the kenlowe wiring and probe but problem now is I'm unsure as to how to wire it all up. I'm looking to have an on off on switch in my circuit but I'm unsure as to how to wire it all. On the kenlowe there is 3 wires, brown/grey/black. Obviously black is earth but what is brown and grey? If anyone has a chart that would be ideal....... Tried googling it earlier but struggling for a definitive answer. 

 

Cheers

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34 minutes ago, kevh said:

I'm sure the switch has to be fitted to the bottom radiator hose as opposed to the top as some instructions state? I may be corrected?

Kev

True. It's always going to be hot coolant at the top hose when the thermostat opens. It's when the radiator has total heat sink, and the coolant is returned to the water pump hot that is when the sensor needs to be sensing the overheat. 95 c I estimate to be about right when the fan should cut in. 

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Edited by Bandog
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It does not matter.  If you do not believe me, try it yourself.  I have....  It controls a little differently, but not a lot.  Every OEM fan control uses the upper hose.  It give a little better engine temperature control, which is the goal.

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It must be in the bottom hose - the fan will run continuously if the sensor is in the top hose, but only if the unassisted rad is failing to cool the coolant sufficiently will the bottom hose sensor trigger the fan.

If the Intermotor switch you got from XEng is the same as the one they sent me, then you have three terminals on it - one is the positive feed from the fuse box, the other two are different temperature activated outputs.  I'd suggest that since your fan has two speed feed wires, you could try connecting the low speed wire to the lower temperature output terminal and the high speed wire to the higher temperature activated terminal, so the fan will behave as a boosted fan if the temperature can't be controlled by the low setting.  Normally, the installation just uses a single speed fan on the low temperature terminal, but hard working engines benefit from a second fan boosting the first at very elevated temperatures.

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Our 300TDI, Discovery with an auto box, has no mechanical fan, just an electirc fan with a simple on off switch in the cab. No temperature sensor. In five years I have never had to switch it on. With the radiator and engine thermostat in good condition they just don't seem to need a fan in road use.

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OEM switches (and temperature senders for the gauge) are in the stat housing FFS. The bottom-hose advice was a technicality from SimonR's testing of the X-Fan switch but it's hardly worth a holy war. The same switch is fitted in the stat outlet of the V8 by LR for switching the aircon fans.

The thermostat will regulate engine temp so the water comping out the top will drop in temp if it's being over-cooled and the stat will close up a bit. The fan shouldn't be on until the stat is wide open anyway. So many people set the fan to come on just as the stat begins to open (an 88deg stat isn't fully open until something like 94deg, so until that point you're not even getting full cooling from your rad), you're just thermally cycling your engine needlessly and I've heard people say that TDi's don't appreciate that.

If your TDi is overheating I'd suspect something wrong with it unless you're in the Sahara.

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