This is a walkthrough of my electric fan installation. I'm putting this up in the hopes it will save someone else a little bit of time doing this same swap. Installing electric fans saves a little bit of horsepower, cools the engine better, and most importantly (to me) frees up A TON of engine compartment space.
My clutch fan went bad on me, so I thought it would be a perfect time to upgrade to some electric fans. I started with reading on this site, reading about clutch VS electric fans in general, and looking at Chris' V6-s12 electric fan walk through. All were very helpful.
I ended up pulling a set of fans out of a '91 Nissan Maxima, which fit with barely any modification, cost me $25, and seem to pull a very reasonable amount of air. I decided on a switch controlled fan, because thermostatic switches were prohibitively expensive ($100 for a good one, $50 for a crappy rad fin sensor from AutoZone).
So these are the fans I started with. They are two separate fans that fit together. I drilled a few extra holes in the corners to support zip ties for attachment to the radiator.
They haven't blown yet. Oh! That's another thing. Read up on relays, how they work, and how to wire them. I learned all about them for this project. They're a pretty sweet little electrical trick.
I ended up following this wiring diagram exactly, except that I used two separate switches, instead of one 3 position switch, as the diagram shows. I couldn't find a 3 position switch, honestly--and I'm cool with two separate switches.
These are the awesome retro switches I installed. I dig their look, and the nice metallic 'click' they make. I actually installed them right in the dashboard, as I couldn't figure out how to separate the top and bottom pieces of the dash. There is plenty of room behind there for a drill to do its thing, just pull off the trim piece underneath and take out the cruise cont switch so you can see what you're doing.
Couldn't find a convenient place to run through the firewall, so out the side and under the hood it was. The switches draw almost no current, so 18-22 gauge wire is fine. I tapped into the radio's 12v ignition switched wire. Use a test bulb to find the right one. The light colored wire below was a replacement for shot stock speaker wiring.
These are the relays with all the wires connected, ready for final testing before they got tucked away and more securely wrapped. You wouldn't believe how happy and relieved I was when the fans worked as expected. Making something work on a car is the best feeling in the world... almost...
One of the only things that didn't quite fit with the Maxima fans was a tube coming off the power steering pump. It got dangerously close the the fans, and I was worried it would slip too far over and start getting chopped up. That would've been fun, right? No steering and an overheating engine as a combo? No thanks. I zip tied (those are the most versatile things in the toolbox, seriously) the tube to an adjacent mounting bracket to pull it away from the fan.
This is the finished arrangement for the installation. 30A fuses coming off the positive post on the left (yellow wires), relays zip tied together, sealed with electrical tape, and tucked under the main wiring bundle at the front and in the top of the picture, and everything grounded to the existing ground bolt on the right side of the picture.
And the final view of my complete installation. I love the extra space I get by not having that huge fan shroud and clutch fan, and it still looks almost stock. The wiring from the switches in the dash follows near the red line, under the washer/antifreeze reservoirs, around the battery, and to the relays.
This may have been overkill for such a simple job. I'm thorough, what can I say (hehe), but I wish someone would have done this for me to read before I jumped into it! Thanks to Keith for his help, and to Chris @ v6-s12.com for his project pics. Again, I hope this helps!
Jul 27, 2007, 9:48 pm · #1
