Windstar electric fan placement

[bike-maker]

In this next few days, I'll pick up more fuses and sacrifice a few to see how many amps the fans are drawing.
But for now, I'm taking Lotza's advise and taking a break for a while.

Would the highest current draw be at start up with everything cold?

As for the dash comments;
I drug my 84 out of a field where it had sat for 3 years with a 460/C6 and 3.55 gears. Knowing I wanted a diesel for towing my 5er around, I bought a 89 F250 with 7.3/ZF5 and 4.10 gears that had a in-cab fire for a donor. Long story short, I swapped the entire drive train out of the 89 into my 84, except for the transfer case and drive shafts. This included the manual steering column, thus the bricknose steering wheel. One of these days I'll get a nice aftermarket steering wheel for some extra bling.

So I searched for a slant nose diesel cluster with tach for about 2 years until I decided to just use the tach and speedo that came out of the bricknose.
Snowball effect commences, and voila - custom dash.

It's all made out of .080" aluminum sheet.

Quick rundown of the gauges;

Left of speedo - Auber pyro on top, boost on bottom
Right of tach, water temp on top, oil pressure on bottom

Across the top of this panel are indicators for turn signals, brights, 4x4, brake warning, low fuel pressure.

Moved stereo down about 1/2" so I could stack 3 gauges above it; 2 fuel level gauges (1 for each tank), and a voltmeter.

Then built a pod on top of the dash to house the factory clock and cover up the big hole in the dash.

In place of the factory clock (these are the ones LCAM asked about); vacuum gauge on the left, 3 air pressure gauges on the right for the on board air and rear air bags.

Up above all of that - above the rear view mirror (can't see it in the pics), I mounted an overhead console from an Explorer.

So now I can get more info than I really need, or get distracted enough to run into something, or both.

And finally, built another panel in place of the ash tray underneath the temp controls, which houses the cig lighter, and an air switch and regulator so I can adjust the pressure in the rear bags on the fly.

 

[LCAM-01XA]

Lotzagoodstuff, your attachment didn't work, no big deal tho - I was just wondering how well the mounting tabs for the Mk8 shroud lined up with the IDI radiator brackets is all.

BikeMaker, yes, the highest current electric motors draw is during startup, that's the in-rush Lotzagoodstuff was talking about. Not sure if ambient temperatures makes a noticeable difference tho, probably not since these electric motors do not have oil cooling and such, they just ride on sealed bearings the drag of which should be negligible (even if grease is cold and thick) compared to the inertia of the fan blades.

 

[lotzagoodstuff]

Lotzagoodstuff, your attachment didn't work, no big deal tho - I was just wondering how well the mounting tabs for the Mk8 shroud lined up with the IDI radiator brackets is all.

See if this one is visible, but yes a couple of the holes lined up and I made the bracket/mount to make up the other side. It was pretty easy, bonus points for anybody who can identify what the material is that I used to make the bracket/mount out of......

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[LCAM-01XA]

Shelf rack legs! Hey, you use what you got, and if it works it works!

 

[typ4]

Bed frame angle.

 

[LCAM-01XA]

Yeah, on a 2nd look it does appear to be bed frame angle, if it was a shelf rack leg the all the holes would taper to one side only, which they don't. Good catch!

 

[lotzagoodstuff]

Bed frame angle.

We have a winner. Just an FYI: bed frame angle can be had for very cheap, especially the closer you are to a college town at the end of a semester. The holes almost always help you out too

Sorry I neglected to document the dimensions but trust me, if you aren't hell bent on covering the entire radiator, the Mark VIII fan is a good upgrade.

 

[bike-maker]

Been a couple weeks, so time for an update;

Finally picked up a new stash of fuses to destroy and was fairly surprised at the results.

Everything was completely cold, just left the switches on and started stabbing different fuses in the fuse holders, letting the fans come to a complete stop before starting them back up again. And it's just a basic wiring system without any kind of soft start/fancy fan controller.

Smaller fan with the long motor: This one draws a little more amperage than the other.
Will pop a 15 amp fuse instantly
Will pop a 20 amp fuse after kicking it on 5 or 6 times
Couldn't get it to blow a 25 amp fuse

Bigger fan with the pancake motor:
Will pop a 15 amp fuse instantly
Couldn't even get it to pop a 20 amp fuse

I figured there would be a much higher current draw. So using 10 gauge wiring, 50 amp relays, and 30 amp fuses seems to be more than sufficient.

Only trip I've made in the truck was over to the dunes; 3 people and a single quad in the bed, temp was only about 45 degrees out. Engine temp stayed like a rock at about 190 without ever touching the fans. Not any big hills to speak of, though. The true test will be once the rainy season is over and I take a camping trip with the 5er in tow.

So I currently have the fans pulled out and sitting on the work bench.

Here's what they look like now after some slight modification:

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Those with a keen eye will notice that the longer motor on the small fan has now been changed out with another of the pancake motors.....for clearance reasons.

I spent the day mocking up this little guy:

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A York 210 for an on board air setup.

I've got the York sitting right where the old A/C pump used to be - even uses the stock length belt.

Needless to say, the long motor and the belt for the York were trying to occupy the same space.

Hopefully tomorrow I can find the time to bolt all of this stuff together and show an example of what the clearance is.

 

[icanfixall]

Thats really a nice fan modification. I have wanted to try this electric fan mod for a long time. My plan is to fab a shroud thats clean and connected to the Rodney Red aluminum radiater so no air is pulled thru the edges anywhere like our oem shrouds have. I may or may not make the steering box cutout. Just have not felt which way to go with that yet. Not sure if we really need it or not on the oem set ups.

 

[lotzagoodstuff]

Great write up, and very interesting results

I am surprised as well by the relatively low startup current draw on these fans, one thing to keep in mind is that when it gets hot outside, all resistances generally go up, which might cause a little more draw, but this is great info for other folks looking to convert to e fans.

 

[bike-maker]

On to version 2.0

Haven't really needed to even turn the fans on yet.....really don't need any kind of fan unless I'm towing something - and I've been unloaded since the install.
Only time I had to turn them on was over at the dunes - started the truck to let it warm up for a while, got to BSing with my dad, and didn't get back in the truck for about a half hour. When I got back in the truck to leave, the gauge was showing 240 degrees. Kicked both fans on, and it cooled right down, but this led me to investigate some idiot proofing to the system.

So I eventually came upon this thread: contains some good info on setting up electric fans.

And from there, I ordered one of the BMW dual temp switches from rock auto.
It's a temp switch that is actually 2 temp switches in one package. This one works at 195/210 degrees. and it's cheap.
The biggest downside is it's oddball metric threads. I used a brass bushing, and just drilled and tapped it to accept the 14mm x 1.25 threads of the temp switch.
Made a trip through my local junkyard and picked up the wiring pigtail off of a Beamer.

Here's where I screwed it into the head:

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Kinda hard to see in my picture, so I stole this image from a fellow BOOB:

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I used the hole for the stock temp gauge for my aftermarket temp gauge, and I use the hole for the stock temp idiot light for the new BMW temp switch that controls the electric fans.

For wiring the switch in, I had to change some things around, but no big deal. I couldn't find anywhere how the BMW temp switch gets wired up, so I had to install the switch in the head, then spent a couple hours getting the engine hot, letting it cool, etc. with a multimeter attached to the switch to figure out how it actually worked.

So if anyone else wants to try this switch, I'll save you the same grief I suffered and reveal how it's wired.
The BMW connector has 3 wires coming from the switch; they're labeled 1, 2, and 3.
Terminal 1 gets hooked to ground
Terminal 2 has continuity to terminal 1 once the switch sees 196 degrees (low)
Terminal 3 has continuity to terminal 1 once the switch sees 210 degrees (high)

So, terminal 2 grounds the relay that sends power to the first fan, and terminal 3 grounds the relay that sends power to the second fan.

In addition to this, I ran wires up to 2 spare indicators in my dash that will light when the fans kick on - 1 indicator for each fan.
Then I ran a wire to a switch that will ground both relays; so I can manually kick both fans on with a in-cab switch.

So here's how it works so far.
Keep in mind these results were from letting the truck idle in my driveway, so not 100% accurate, but still not what I was expecting.

The first fan will turn on at 216, then stay on until the temp drops down to 192.
The second fan doesn't turn on until 232, then stays on until the temp comes back down to 200.

Temp usually hovers right around 185, unless loaded down and going up hill.

Not sure what to think of the results yet; I'll have to load this thing up and drive it hard to see how it really behaves. But, I'm not sure where the big discrepancy is coming from.

Thought #1; my craptastic mechanical gauge is grossly inaccurate (entirely possible)
Thought #2; I got an air pocket underneath the new switch - this switch doesn't have the long shaft that hangs down into the water jacket like others I've seen. It's not even as long as the brass bushing it's screwed into, which leaves a pocket for air to get trapped in.

I might junk my gauge and get a better one, or I might try relocating the temp switch. Not sure yet which direction I want to go.
But whatever I decide, I'll post the results here for y'all to peruse.

 

[FORDF250HDXLT]

i think you got lucky with how your temp switches worked out.if they worked properly then you'd have fans spinning when the t-sat was closed (waste of energy of course.)
remember the engine will run at least 192 (t-stat temp) with a proper cooling system.motorcraft rt1049 t-stat and 50/50 mx.so it's nothing to see 195-200 just running up a few grades even empty,from time to time,but once over the grades the engine will cool right back down again on it's own so you wouldn't want fans needlessly coming on for anything yet.
having the fans not turn on until 215 & 230 sounds like it'll work good for ya.i don't know why those are not kicking your fans on sooner (as per their ratings) but if your gauge is accurate,you should have a decent setup there with safe temps that can't get away from ya.

 

[LCAM-01XA]

Yea those number seem quite low, I have a mechanical gauge in the port where your bimmer temp switch is and I see 195-200 all the time at cruise speed (2300 rpms) under light load (empty truck) with fans off and EGTs floating around 600. I think your gauge isn't reading quite right, 185F is quite low for coolant temp even in sub-zero weather.

That said, how are you getting the turn on/off temperatures for the fans? 232, 216, and 192 are quite exact numbers, most people would approximate them to 230, 215, and 190 respectively, are you estimating them based on where your mechanical gauge needle points on its dial? Cause that would suggest said mechanical gauges is actually fairly accurate, which doesn't jive with the thermostat temp setting and the steady 185 you see...

Also idk what' going on with the temp discrepancies between what the switch is supposed to do and what it actually does, but how the setup works right now sounds pretty good, I wouldn't change a thing.

 

[bike-maker]

Just going off of the mechanical gauge. Tested it 3 separate times and the switch worked at the same temps all 3 times.

 

[drinkypoo]

You could switch one fan off the engine temp switch and one off a coolant thermostat (they're cheap) and maybe add a relay to activate the higher-temp fan of the two when the A/C clutch is engaged as well