Got an electric fan from the junkyard off an old Chevy Cavalier. 16"X16.5"X4.5" It still wouldn't fit directly in front of the old fan pulley, but I offset it, and it fit really nicely. The oddity was when I wired up the relay, I attached the switched wire to one of those little nuts on the coil. The idle dropped a little, so I know my spark was weakened. But, it ran about 10 degrees HOTTER!!! I then took the switched wire off the coil and mounted it to the little nut below the battery cable that goes off to the starter, I am not sure what that goes to. It is switched and now runs 10 degrees cooler and the idle is back up where it needs to be. Why did the small drain on the coil cause hotter temps? Anyway, for anyone wanting to use this fan, it fits after you grind off the mounting tabs (3 of them). I mounted it directly to the radiator using 4 of those ratcheting wire-tie doohickies that came with my trans cooler. A long nylon string with a flat tab at one end, thread through the radiator vanes, and slide on another tab, pull tight, snip off the loose end. It fits really snug, no wiggle, and no leak. And it feels like an extra 20 HP!!!
you really need to run the fan through a relay to prevent any overheating of the wiring system. those fans pull a fair amount of juice that's why your idle dropped, not enough juice from coil to fan, put a 30 amp breaker inline from hot source to fan and it should be fine.
It is running on a 12v 30A relay, with an inline 30A fuse. When I plugged the switched side of the relay onto the coil, that is when I lost the idle, and gained the heat.
I don't think you should ever run anything off the hot wire to the coil. That is directly takeing energy out of your ignition which can only hurt performance.
I've never heard of running anything from the coil, unhook that...........either run it from a switched fuse in your fuse box or from the switch terminal on your alternator and use a relay......ALWAYS use a relay.
I took it off the coil, since I lost a bit of power from that. I is now running on the bottom slide-on wire on the starter solenoid. Seems to work ok, and no drain. If this is not a good location, please tell me. and suggest a better switched wire to hook into.
If you are running the fan off the push-on I terminal on the starter relay, its still pulling off the ignition wire. If you are using that terminal to energize the relay, it may work, but I would find another source for it.
The fan is hooked directly to the red hot wire from the battery, where it ends on the starter solenoid. The relay switch is running off the bottom push-on terminal. I just couldn't find any other switched low power source without running 10 feet of wire. Currently, is is all in one little area. I am open to suggestions for other switched sources to trigger my relay. What is that bottom push on, and the top one? What do they do?
Im not sure on that type of solenoid but one is for the starter and one is for the ignition. One way to test if you dont know and if you want to know is make sure the car is off with no key in the ignition then take a wire about 2 feet long and touch one end to the positive end of the battery and touch the other to one of them and if it does nothing thats the iginition one.BUT if you touch the right one the engine will crank and start. BUT BUT dont hold it on there once its started it dont hold the wire on there any more or the starter will grind. If your real quick once the car is started you take the wire off the starter one put it to the igintion one and the car will stay running. for you there not much use for this but a car theft there plenty. i use this method to crank the motor over from under the hood its very help full when you setting the intinal timing mark if you do something like swaping the distributor. PS i might be wrong on this but isnt one of the wires on the coil only 6 volts
The top push on is the trigger for the relay when you turn the key to start position. The bottom is energized when the relay is triggered for start to put battery voltage to the coil during cranking. Once you release the key the bottom terminal looses its connection inside the relay. The only way for voltage to remain at the bottom terminal after running is for the relay to be broken inside(unlikely) or for the terminal to be backfed from the wire coming from the coil. You can test this by getting a volt reading with the engine running. Put the black lead on battery ground and red on coil + then move red to bottom push on on starter relay and see if voltage is not the same approx. 7-9 volts, assuming the coil is still fed through the factory resistance wire. Since you are using this for the trigger for your new relay and not the actual power source for the fan it may work fine.
The last time I bought a new solenoid, that's the kind they gave me. I hate it, but I was trying to resolve a starter gremlin at the time and have not taken it back off because it works. Not sure if it's an earlier or later style, but it is a pain trying to get all the wires on it.
Has anyone moved their solenoid? It sure is ugly, and after I swap to a one-wire alternator and lose the voltage regulator, I would like to not have to see that solenoid either.
