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Contour Electric Fan Install |
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Mopar_guy 
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Joined: Jun/07/2009 Location: Ohio Status: Offline Points: 4823 |
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 Posted: Jun/23/2019 at 8:20pm |
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They can going down the road because a 5 blade factory flex fan will actually impair the amount of air going thru the radiator at freeway speeds of 70 mph. Now granted most on here don't drive their cars that much so for them it's not an upgrade. But for those who do drive them at freeway speeds, those electric fans are off letting air go thru them and using zero HP since they are not on. Oh and it's a lot quieter in the car without that fan roaring under the hood. That was a huge difference when I switched. In bumper to bumper traffic on a hot day, I'll bet those electric fans will pull more air across that radiator than a 5 blade flex fan at an idle too. IMO if you have a 55 amp alternator and no A/C, there's no reason to change or go bigger. It might even be fine with A/C. Bill can answer that one for you.
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billd
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Forum Administrator Joined: Jun/27/2007 Location: Iowa Status: Offline Points: 30894 |
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Posted: Jun/23/2019 at 8:27pm |
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You said it better than I tried to earlier - the real differences will be highway - you won't need to have the fan since speed will force air through - and in town, on a hot day (common here) sitting in traffic, yeah. Those fans can kick in high and pull a whole lot more air than an idling mechanical fan. No doubt. Since I DO drive my Eagle in those conditions - I could consider this. My problem - there's precious little space for MORE wires, sensors and such ! LOL Your logic seems sound to me.........  |
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Pdok
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Posted: Jun/24/2019 at 8:34am |
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The point about having more airflow at idling is really the only one that resonates with me, at least for my in-town driving scenarios. There's probably no practical way to measure airflow differences between stock and electric fans, sitting at idle, and I'd be stunned if either stock or electric fans made more than a 0.1 mpg difference
Someone adding AC or operating in the extreme heat with a thin radiator and no shroud is a great candidate for this as an upgrade. As long as their electrical system can start and sustain the load, or they'll need to add electrical/alternator upgrades to the cost. A valuable addition to the sticky version of this would be suggestions of minimum alternator amp ratings to match each of the fan configurations. I did find out from the XJ FSM that the coolant temp sensor actually provides variable resistance, not just an on/off signal. Maybe that means somebody (certainly not me) could read the resistance and trigger at multiple temps off the same sensor.
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76 Grem X 258/904,4.0 head/MPFI, Comp X250H cam, Hughes springs, Clifford header, serpentine swap.
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Greyhounds_AMX
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Joined: Nov/14/2009 Location: Kansas City Status: Offline Points: 1268 |
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Posted: Jun/25/2019 at 12:55pm |
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Fan Mounting Brackets To mount the fan I made up some brackets out of 18 gage sheetmetal. I've seen other folks use the existing mounting tabs on the shroud to mount it, but I cut those completely off. With those gone you can even use some pieces of angle to mount the fan to the radiator. The brackets I worked up could be used for either the original radiator or the
aftermarket radiator. You can screw or rivet them to the fan shroud, I found
that the placement on the factory radiator allowed riveting (with reinforcing
washers), but using it with the aftermarket radiator it worked best to use
screws.
Once I had them fabbed up I made up a drawing that you
could take to your friendly local plasma / waterjet guy. Most of them use the dxf format, and you can download that here (I had to put it in a zip file for the forum):
If you don't have someone nearby that does that sort of thing I recommend "Major Metal" - Darrin is a Jeep guy just outside of Kansas City and does amazing work at a really fair price, and will ship. You can see his stuff on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/MajorMetal |
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1968 AMX 390 w/T5
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73hornut
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Posted: Jun/25/2019 at 10:38pm |
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Edited by 73hornut - Jun/25/2019 at 10:44pm |
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71 Javelin
74 Gremlin 79 Spirit AMX Rogue Valley Rumblers Like Us on FB https://www.facebook.com/groups/1602825606650796 |
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Greyhounds_AMX
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Joined: Nov/14/2009 Location: Kansas City Status: Offline Points: 1268 |
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Posted: Jun/26/2019 at 6:47am |
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If you look at the drawing you can see I've slotted the holes in the brackets all the way to the edge. That way you could take out two bolts on one side of the radiator, but leave the two on the other side in place and unscrew them 1/4" or so. That would be enough to keep the radiator from dropping while you install/remove the fan. The hoses tend to help hold it in place as well.
In some cars if the clearance is really tight though there may be no choice but to take the radiator and fan in an out together as a set.
Edited by Greyhounds_AMX - Jun/26/2019 at 6:49am |
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1968 AMX 390 w/T5
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73hornut
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Posted: Jun/26/2019 at 7:31am |
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71 Javelin
74 Gremlin 79 Spirit AMX Rogue Valley Rumblers Like Us on FB https://www.facebook.com/groups/1602825606650796 |
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Greyhounds_AMX
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Posted: Jun/28/2019 at 12:50pm |
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Battery Connections
The positive run over to the battery is the longest and probably the most apt to see vibration working on it over time, so I'm using Ancor 10 AWG marine grade wire from the battery to the Short Stop breaker. The marine grade wire has about 130 strands of tinned copper, so is much more flexible than standard automotive wire, which would normally have about 20 strands of plain copper. I crimped all of the connections with a ratcheting crimper then covered them in heat shrink tubing, as it's hard to solder these heavy gauge wires without damaging the insulation. Good quality crimps will conduct essentially the same as soldered joints, and keep in mind that the factory crimped every connection on your car and it's seems to work fine. You can get an IWISS ratcheting crimper with 5 different sets of jaws on Amazon for about $25 if you don't already have one. Rockford Fosgate offers some nice looking and reasonably priced battery terminal connectors that allowed an additional positive connection for the fan. I had already pretty much run out of room on the positive stud of the starter relay, so needed another option. They are part number RFDB4 and run about $15/pair on Ebay.  The negative connection on the factory Contour/Cougar wiring includes a ring terminal that fits well on a 5/16" bolt, so I drilled a hole down low in the frame and bolted the connection there. There's a nice access hole in the bumper bracket that you can drill through, and if you use a bolt with a small head like a header bolt you can fit a socket through the hole to hold the bolt in place while you tighten the connection. Of course, you need to clean off the paint in the area in order to get a really good connection, and follow up with some dielectric grease to prevent future corrosion.   |
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1968 AMX 390 w/T5
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Greyhounds_AMX
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Posted: Jun/29/2019 at 10:27am |
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Repairing the Volvo Relay Connectors
On every Volvo relay
I've pulled from a yard, the middle of the three connectors has had damaged
weather seals. It seems like the soft plastic they used just couldn’t handle the
heat for long term and starts to crumble. This is a two conductor connector
with barrel style connections that applies the ground for each of the relay
coils.
These are replaceable
though. I found that the plastic plug itself has a hinged door that you can
open by releasing catches on its sides, giving access to the inside.
You can procure new
pigtail assemblies from Volvo (part number 3523813) for about $8 each:
Alternatively, there are some offered by internet sources: https://www.240turbo.com/blackvinyl.html#pigtailfemale But I found that the weather seals can be remade using short sections of vacuum hose of the right size to fit snugly inside the plug. The length is important - the new seal has to fit tight between the front and back ends of the plug when it's closed.
The vacuum hose I used fit really tight on the raised plastic boss inside the relay, so I opened it up a bit using a 3/16" drill bit. Then to assemble it all you first install the barrel connectors on their relay terminals, then slide the hose segments on over the wire and snug them down as far as they will go into the relay. Then mix up some JB Weld and push that into the back of the hose segments to bond the wire and connector into place. Make sure to clean the ID of the hose and the wires first with lacquer thinner or similar. The next day you can
push them into the plastic plug and close the hinged door. It would be a good
idea to lightly lube the inside of the new seals with silicone grease or
similar to make them easier to install and remove in the future.
One fellow said fish
tank tubing was a good fit for this application, but I don't know that it would
hold up in an automotive environment. Still though, the clear tubing makes a
good illustration of what we're trying to accomplish. This is common connector
on Volvo cars so the Volvo guys have this pretty well figured out.
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1968 AMX 390 w/T5
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JolleyGreenSST
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Joined: Jul/12/2018 Location: High Desert, CA Status: Offline Points: 239 |
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Posted: Jul/06/2019 at 2:25am |
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Lots of great info in this post. Definitely know what I'm doing when it comes time for cooling options.
Thanks guys!
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"God is good all the time and all the time God is good!"
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purple72Gremlin wrote:
