TPI

Hey guys, ill keep this brief-ish.

I recently just burnt up a fan motor during a trouble-shoot of finding
why my fans don't kick on at operating temperature. At first inspection,
the wiring near the battery shown signs of significant heat and caused it
to fail outright. I cut the wire away, used some 14g. wire and gave it a go.
The heat instantly overcame the the insulation. I stopped, bumped up to a
12g. in-line fuse kit and crimped it in the existing circuit. No luck, it popped
the fuse instantly.

So, Like a stubborn mule.. I hard wired the fan with no fuse, and ran the fan
for a couple of minutes and, the motor gave up the ghost and smoked out.
Much deserved, I know.

What is troubling me is, the short. How do I find it? Could it be the fan motor?
The inspection of the wiring looked good, besides the indication of heat where
the weakest part of the wiring is the 14gauge-to-12gauge wiring at the battery.
All grounds looked good, and I could not find any signs of wiring
grounding out or picked up stray current elsewhere.. Im like lost,
and about to run a independent circuit with after market fan controls!


Any guidance? Thoughts? Experiences?

8t2 z-chev

sounds to me like a bad fan motor was the cause-these fans(3rd gen dual)pull~7.5 amps each motor once at speed-14 ga.wire plenty thick enough with a good fan motor.Some GM fan motors have a diode built in that will short out and burn up if wiring connected backwards,but since your fan ran a few min.probably had a shorted armature winding.

TPI

Thanks for the reply,

I was also inclined to think motor as well, considering the car
is 58k and been garaged its whole life. The harness is in amazing
condition..

My worry is replacing the fan and burning that up too. I'm just
not quite sure how to go about it. When the circuit was all connected,
it didn't want to flame up until the car temp hit 236* or whatever it
it kicks in on.. So, in that aspect.. It almost tells me the motor was the
culprit, the relay passed visual inspection.

TPI

Just to close out this thread, I replaced the fan with a new motor.. The nice guys at Hawks sold me a
single fan with the bracket/blade for $45.00 and sent it out. Had it in two days, that's good stuff.

I rewired it again with the 30amp inline fuse and 14 gauge wire, works like
a charm. No signs of heat, or strange smells, and it is kicking out some serious wind under there! Noticable
difference from my old fan motor. At least if this motor decides to **** the bed, the fuse will pop and not
melt my circuitry.


Thanks 8t2 for the suggestion!