Elecric fans on a Tdi?

[GBMUD]

Following my viscous fan becoming un-balanced...

I have never been keen on electric fans in Landrovers, least of all Tdis. I am coming to the conclusion though, that having to replace the viscous clutch unit regularly is a PITA and is expensive. Apart from the reliability issue with electric fans, I am concerned that I would like some flow of air over the intercooler when driving very slowly or at idle. I do not know exactly how much benefit this would be or at what speed air flow would be sufficient without the need for a fan. Obvoiusly running a fan continuously while on the road would be un-nessacary.

Has anyone got any actual knowlege of this subject rather than making a guess like me - what advantage would I gain or damage could I do with/without intercooler fans? Can anyone suggest any way to make a cooling fan (for the intercooler) run when stationary - perhaps a micro-switch on the clutch peddle - and then turn off, unless needed, once the car is moving? I would consider an over temperature alarm (or better yet a "fans not running and they jolly should be" alarm) to be essential, any suggestions there? Am I likely to find a 2-fan unit in the scrapper that one could fit to a Tdi? I would want one fan to overlap the rad and intercooler and one on the rad alone at a guess. Failing that, what pair of branded fans would fit/would anyone reccomend?

In my case this is for fitting to a 200Tdi Defender but all Tdis are much the same.

Thanks for your thoughts.

Chris

[samwilk200]

I have a 200tdi rad and intercooler in my 2.8 isuzu.

Got an electric fan from scrappy, off a ford, fan covers hole of radiator, and none of intercooler. Simple on/off switch, but hardly ever use it unless doing pay and play type things as engine never goes above quarter on guage for normal use. I think that not having air flow through the intercooler when stationary wouldnt matter and would be barely noticable, if at all, so i wouldnt bother with the hassle of trying to wire something up.

Sam

[Hybrid_From_Hell]

Chris,

I am with you on this.

The old V8 got very very very hot when either stationary having worked hard (core temp then goes up), or worse still when being worked hard and barely moving.

The viscous is all that is on there, and wasn't enough.

Blocking off all areas around the rad helps - this way ANY air is made to go acroiss the rad or in your case intercoller.

There are 3 possible things you could do.

1 - Place a lower themostat in, this makes a difference and drops the entire engine heat range a notch, I have done it and it makes a huge difference, takes longer to warm up tho on the advice of John W I now have a 74 degree one

2 - Electric fans as a BACK up rather than a direct replacement, as you say if the fans throw their respective legs in the air for some cause your engine will self destruct, oftebn you may not know there was a prob till too late. Back up leccy fans is the route I have gone, 2x kenlowes and they make another HUGE impact on heat, I have them via a on = perm on, off = perm off and stst = on - ie a termp guage in the rad which switches it on at a pre detrermined heat and then off again when the engine has dropped to the correct heat...

3- get the air OUT of the bay drops heat all around, vents in the wing do help, I guess you already have one, but you could fit a sseciond, see V8 freaks post in tech

But fitting fans as a back up I think you'll be better off, vicous will do its job and then extar to help ?

HTH

nige

[FridgeFreezer]

I reckon you'd gain a few BHP from removing the viscous so the intercooler thing wouldn't be noticeable, if it was an issue.

[Orgasmic Farmer]

If you can find a RRC or Disco 200tdi with aircon you can get the twin push fans off the front of the rad plus the thermostatic switch and housing off the thermostat which will allow you to fit them to run automatically. The switch seems to be set quite hot and these fans only come on to help[ cooling when the gauge goes above half way. I have another leccy fan on the back of the rad but that is on a manual switch. I would be tempted to run the rangie fan set up but have the one in front of the intercooler running all the time. Don't suppose there is an easy way to get it to switch off above say 30 mph?

[headhunter]

Chris

Not a direct answer to your question, however have you thought about a cool charger.

I have one fitted to my 300tdi(2.8tgv).

The heat exchanger (air to turbo/water to dedicated radiator - similar size and mounting to TD5 intercooler) is positioned where the conventional intercooler is fitted, it just protrudes a bit further out to the rear and has a small electric pump to push the coolant around.

A Spal thermostatically controlled fan is fitted to the inside of the main radiator and sucks when switched via the thermostat. I have not as yet fitted a manual switch but will soon so that I can draw air through the cool charge radiator when standing still or in slow conditions.

With the cool charge radiator being on the outside it benefits first when the Spal comes on.

Around a 20 degree F reduction can be expected to the air induction temperature in normal conditions, as advised by Jon Norman from Brunel Performance who supplied the system.

My feeling is that in use I get loads of low down power yet feel that the engine is still coasting, also helped by a 3" exhaust which reduces back pressure and heat build up in the turbo area.

Any questions please ask.

John

[FridgeFreezer]

Sorry have to disagree there - the aircon fans are weak as hell, they're just there to cool the air-con condensor down and really don't make a dent in the temperature of the rad.

[expat69]

Just my 2p.

for the last 3 years I have run my Disco 300 tdi auto without any fan at all between October and April... never had any problem...

even with all the aircon bits in front of the rad...

[moose]

dont know if this helps but....

The two push fans (ie they sit infront of the rad) from a diesel pug 205 are a very powerful and fit nicely across both the rad and intercooler on my 200 disco..

I just need to get round to fitting them and got the same temp switch that kenlowe use from RS for about 14quid

[Les Brock]

I had twin electric fans on mine, and i've gone back to vicsous ,the electric fans did not like the pikey van on the back, running all the time to try and keep the temp down,

I do have one lecy fan still fitted just to run on a switch, as 1 is better that nowt if your viscous pack up

for what you gain in HP, not worth the effort IMHO

[Orgasmic Farmer]

Sorry have to disagree there - the aircon fans are weak as hell, they're just there to cool the air-con condensor down and really don't make a dent in the temperature of the rad.

Fair enough. I have a big fan inboard of the rad that I switch manually, the aircon ones just come on automatically when it gets a bit hotter than the leccy fan can deal with on its own (or when I forget to turn the fan on manually!!!). Was really just thinking of using them as a supplement and maybe keeping one on to cool the intercooler. With no aircon condensor in the way they would surely have some cooling effect on ther radiator?

If, as is bourne out by expoerience, you only ever "need" a fan when towing, climbing or offroading, then surely the viscous unit itself is never really doing anything except in those cirumstances anyway. (I tried mine the other day and yes you can stop it with a paint brush. Therefore it has theoretically very little influence on intercooler cooling whatsoever under normal circumstances. Probably the ram effect of the plastic cowling has a greater influence. The effect of having an additonal fan running to push air through the intercooler would certainly not be damaging in any way but whether it is of any benefit I, like you Chris, am unsure.

[honitonhobbit]

I have a single mahoosive kenlow fitted on the inner face of my rad on the 100". I don't like leccy fans as I am a luddite, but this one works well and seems to do the job. Some points I would make:

Don't buy crappy fans, buy new from Pacet or Kenlowe or buy quality fans from a scrappy (Clova/Pacet/Ford)

Don't put the fans on the outer face of the rad

Do your leccie bits proper like - no bodges with lots of waterproof joints, fuse holders, warning lights and white grease.

Don't worry about the 'cooler if it's standard

Fit a decent thermo switch. Mine is in the rad it's self but I am told that a company called Xengsomethingorother do a really good thermo switch mount

Mine comes on once in a blue moon, has a cut off and an override all in one illuminated switch with warning doofer

[FridgeFreezer]

Was really just thinking of using them as a supplement and maybe keeping one on to cool the intercooler. With no aircon condensor in the way they would surely have some cooling effect on ther radiator?

They will have some effect but not really enough to warrant having them when you could have something far more effective from a car in there.

[will_warne]

Chris,

I am with you on this.

The old V8 got very very very hot when either stationary having worked hard (core temp then goes up), or worse still when being worked hard and barely moving.

The viscous is all that is on there, and wasn't enough.

Blocking off all areas around the rad helps - this way ANY air is made to go acroiss the rad or in your case intercoller.

There are 3 possible things you could do.

1 - Place a lower themostat in, this makes a difference and drops the entire engine heat range a notch, I have done it and it makes a huge difference, takes longer to warm up tho on the advice of John W I now have a 74 degree one

2 - Electric fans as a BACK up rather than a direct replacement, as you say if the fans throw their respective legs in the air for some cause your engine will self destruct, oftebn you may not know there was a prob till too late. Back up leccy fans is the route I have gone, 2x kenlowes and they make another HUGE impact on heat, I have them via a on = perm on, off = perm off and stst = on - ie a termp guage in the rad which switches it on at a pre detrermined heat and then off again when the engine has dropped to the correct heat...

3- get the air OUT of the bay drops heat all around, vents in the wing do help, I guess you already have one, but you could fit a sseciond, see V8 freaks post in tech

But fitting fans as a back up I think you'll be better off, vicous will do its job and then extar to help ?

HTH

nige

Nige, totally right. Improving cooling with more powerful fans, bigger, more efficient radiators, blocking gaps etc helps but a big problem is getting heat out. This is something I've had issues with as the heat just used to sit under the bonnet and not go anywhere especally if the vehicle was being driven at speed. I tried drilling the bonnet in typical V8 style which helped quite a bit but I didn't think was enough. I've now got an Allisport cowl on order which has a fan to pull the hot air out from under the bonnet. I'll wire it in with a thermosat and an override in the usual way but leave the viscous to do the brunt of the work as its simple and shifts lots of air. Interestingly, I know someone who did some back to back testing (on a rolling road) of differant intercooler setups a few years ago on a racer and found the best setup was to use a gas flowed standard intercooler and cowel as opposed to a big 'off the shelf' demon tweeks 'cooler with a decent electric fan because the cowl and viscous puled so much more air through.

[Turbocharger]

Chris - I've got no fan on my 300Tdi and haven't had for a year or more. With a decent water temp gauge, there's less than 1*C of increase on the road when driven hard, but you can get it hot if you work it hard offroad at low speed. For driving in traffic, it won't be an issue.

[western]

don't know about lekkie fans, but my 200Tdi has only had 1 viscous unit in 13 years & it gets used every day.

[GBMUD]

I manage to wreck about one a year/eighteen months. I have always had Genuine and OE.

Chris

[western]

I manage to wreck about one a year/eighteen months. I have always had Genuine and OE.

Chris

probly cos your 90 goes into alsorts of mucky places, IIRC I only changed the last VC cos I thought it was duff, but later found it was OK & sold it to another 90 owner sometime ago.

[TomG]

What would happen (effect on cooling) if the VC was locked up?

I know the VC is meant to stiffen as the temperature increases but i guess it must be slipping a fair bit still?

I don't find overheating much of a problem (never goes above abt 90deg, am running an 82deg thermostat)

Often toyed with the idea of drilling a small hole in / welding a tab on the fan nut and threading light gauge wire through it and round the fan blade, not sure if this would unbalance things but could be handy as a failsafe should the VC pack in.

[Andy]

two Tdis ive known have had the VC lock up, neither could get up to normal temp except by sitting at 60mph+ & as soon as you slowed they got cold again.

before i threw them away & went back to a proper VC fan on my Tdi i had twin leccy fans on manual switches. one was directly over the intercooler, i found if i had it running i could climb hills for about 3 times as long before the engine temp started to rise. no noticeable difference in how it drove though.

[GBMUD]

What would happen (effect on cooling) if the VC was locked up?

I know the VC is meant to stiffen as the temperature increases but i guess it must be slipping a fair bit still?

I don't find overheating much of a problem (never goes above abt 90deg, am running an 82deg thermostat)

Often toyed with the idea of drilling a small hole in / welding a tab on the fan nut and threading light gauge wire through it and round the fan blade, not sure if this would unbalance things but could be handy as a failsafe should the VC pack in.

If the viscous unit fails loose (and as you say, they only lock up when they get HOT) then you can "override" them by driving a self tapping screw into the gap between the nut and the viscous part. This makes the fan spin permanently at waterpump speed but gets you home from the Sahara safe.

Chris

[GBMUD]

I presume that most "off the shelf" electric fans are not likely to be big enthusiasts of wadeing/other water ingress. I saw advertised in one of the comics, before I gave them up, some fans claiming to have waterproof motors, anyone remember who they were or where I might buy some?

Chris

[headhunter]

I presume that most "off the shelf" electric fans are not likely to be big enthusiasts of wadeing/other water ingress. I saw advertised in one of the comics, before I gave them up, some fans claiming to have waterproof motors, anyone remember who they were or where I might buy some?

Chris

Chris

Speak to Jon Norman at Brunel Performance, he fits Spal fans and swears by them.

John

[honitonhobbit]

Pacet, Kenlowe and Clova all do waterproof fans

[FridgeFreezer]

I've heard good things about Spal, although personally I am still of the opinion that you can get some really decent ones from scrapyards for 1/10th the price. As long as you over-ride the fan when deep wading it shouldn't care too much, my mondeo one never complained and that was the least sealed motor you could wish for, there was a big hole in the side!