Over the years I've had problems with overheating and have had several incidences of temperature getting dangerously high, including and thankfully only one incident of have to pull over due to overheating.
At one point we found one of my fans was wired the wrong way around (seemingly due to the original fittings this was an error done at time of manufacture). After this was rectified we thought we had fixed the overheating.,
Next we understood the cooling fan relay was faulty, so it was replaced and at that time I purchased two, so I'd have a back up.
Due to the above situations and a few others, I have been wanting to install a fan bypass/override switch for some time. As with most work on my car, if I'm going to attempt it myself, which I would mostly like to do in order to learn, I have to read up a lot first to be sure I know what I'm doing. It took me a while but last weekend I gathered all the parts I had purchased and set about the task.
I brought the car out of the garage and set it upon my mini ramps, just to give access underneath, and to gain those all important extra couple of inches.
I got myself under the car and located the Otterstat in order to bridge the cables and force the fans to come on.
The Otterstat with its Black/Orange wire and Green wire connections can be seen in the photo below.
I disconnected the wires and bridged them with the wire as shown in the next image.
I manoeuvred out from under the car and turned the ignition to position 2 but alas nothing! The fans did not come on, silence. Following the last Essex car meet I attended, the one at Justin's pub in Hertfordshire where we understood the fan issue to be with a faulty relay that was replaced, I was not expecting this. Especially since they seemed to be working thereafter. Click this Facebook logo to see post,
Since I was up against it, time-wise, I proceeded to install the bypass switch, since in my mind the end effect was to create a bridge. I did this as follows.
In advance I had purchased a switch from DeLoreanGo.com specifically for this purpose as shown below.
I had also purchased 1mm wire in all the colours I needed, well almost. I purchased black, green and then orange/black (I could not find black/orange for love or money). Anything else I needed I already had.
I had no spare switches left on the centre console in which to embed the fan override, so I had to come up with an alternative location. Since I hoped not to use it too often I needed to find somewhere easily accessible whilst driving but not where I would have to see trailing cables. I wondered about the ashtray, and as luck would have it there is already a small hole in the rear wall on the ashtray, albeit large enough to feed three 1mm cables through. It is also not sharp so as to cut into the cable. I would be able to hide the switch in the ashtray, and when needed take it out and put it away fairly easily.
So the installation began...
I took out the ashtray
Removed the coin tray to reveal where I had previously installed my wireless charging matt.
and then fed through the orange/black and green wires from the ashtray void underneath the centre console into the coin tray void and through the opening into the fuse and relay compartment as shown below.
The next steps in the process involve locating the wires to join these two on the loom and make a join. I've done a fair amount of research on how to join new wire into existing circuit wiring making watch I've learnt to be called a "T" joint. First of all I learnt about joining and using solder to secure the join. Then I learnt about using piggy back connectors, but this would involve making a cut in the original loom wires. I also learnt about non-solder joins, which due to the standard of my soldering and fear of causing damage within the tight area of the fuse/relay compartment, is the solution I decided to use. I did some trial joins on some spare wire and the solution allowed for some quite firm pulling of the joined wires and they never loosened nor came apart, which gave me confidence this was a secure enough solution.
So to start the non-solder joins I started with the green wire that needs to connect to the green wire coming from the number five fuse. For information there are several green wires in this area running to adjacent fuses. In my car at least, the green wire to the number five fuse had a black band around the sheath just before it attaches to the fuse connector.
I started by removing approximately one inch of sheath from the end of the green wire as shown below.
I then identified the green wire running to fuse number 5
and then used my wire cutters to separate about 1-1.5cm of sheath from the length of wire. This is where the join will be made.
I then, very carefully removed the section of sheath to expose the copper wire. Next I used a bradawl tool to separate the copper wire to create a gap in the middle as shown below.
I brought the new green wire with the copper wire exposed to the loom wire and fed the approximate inch of copper wire through the gap as shown in the following photo.
I took the new green wire and positioned it to the right side of the gap in the separated loom wire and held it there. I then proceeded to twist the length of the copper wire around the copper wire from the loom. See below.
Then I took a length of black electrical tape and wrapped it around the join tightly to secure it.
Next I located the black/orange wire to the Cooling Fan Relay as shown in the photo below and took the same steps to make a connection with the orange/black wire that will run to my switch.
and the finished connections...
Finally the connection to the earth, which I decided to take from the earth at the console switch for my fog light modification. I simply ran the earth wire to the switch and joined it to the earth for the fog light switch in the connector. See the yellow connector below.
With all the wiring connected at one end, now to feed the wires and connect the switch. As mentioned above I decided to locate the switch in the ashtray. As also mentioned there is already a hole in the rear wall of the ashtray where the wires can be fed through. I fed all three wires through the hole and pulled through a sufficient length to work with.
The photo below shows the rear view of the ashtray with the wires fed through the hole. I also bound the wires with some heat shrink tubing to ensure when holding the switch, not too much wire would get pulled through.
I then attached connectors to the wires and then joined them as shown (Green to +, Orange/Black to A, and Black to Earth).
Now time to test the fan override switch. I turned the key in the ignition to position 2, switched on the fan and..... NOTHING!
Not so surprising since the first test I did, bridging the Otterstat failed to activate the fans. It was probably wishful thinking that the switch would turn out to be a solution to this problem. So this is all I could do at that time, so I had to return the car to the garage and wait for the following days to troubleshoot the fan issue.
The next day I took the car out of the garage in an attempt to resolve the fan issue. I tried several things. First of all I replace the relay with a spare I had, nothing. Next I got out my multi-meter and checked the number 5 fuse and it's operation with and without the fuse in place. Then I checked the relay holder connections. All seemed good in terms of passing current where expected. I was now at the end of my technical ability so decided to reach out the the Eurotec team. I sent a post explaining the issue and within minutes they jumped into action like the superheroes they are, and got me to perform some checks. They got me to check if any connectors in the relay holder had been backed out, no. I checked current between the black/orange wire and the black wire of the relay holder, I received the 12v. I also bridged the relay holder by inserting wire in the top vertical and bottom horizontal connector, but no fans came on. At least at this point the problem was being narrowed down.
Next, to do a test which by-passed the relay, I was asked to temporarily bridge between the brown wire of the cooling fan relay holder and the black/orange wire connector of the blue fan fail holder. As soon as I turned my battery cutoff on the fans came to life!
This indicated to those in the know, not me, that the 40 amp fan circuit breaker was the problem.
I took a picture of the fuse/relay bay in the region of the circuit breakers.
One of my circuit breakers was free floating, I needed to fit a new holding bracket which I had purchased but not yet got round to doing. I held this back with the screwdriver that's in shot. The circuit breaker to the right, which is correctly affixed, has nothing on its' connector terminals, and if you look further to the right, you can see two yellow connectors, unplugged!
I fed this back to the team and then it all made sense. These should be plugged in to the circuit breaker. So that's what I did and violà, with a flick of my new override switch, the fans came on. Job finally done. The video below records that magic moment.
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