Help/Advice needed please

[The Hood]

Its probably been posted on here before but am in a bit of a dilema as i am supposed to be going on a run tommorrow and have just cleaned my car and have checked it over, oil, water, etc, etc.
Anyway i had the engine running to warm it up with the bonnet open whilst i finished off drying it and noticed that the temp was getting high (above 80) and the fans had not started to work, still not at 90, then i noticed that there was water coming out of the top of the expansion tank (cap was on) temp was then up to 95 and still no fans.(normal running temp of car is around 70 and fans normally kick in at around 75-80)
Have checked the horn as it says in the manual that the horn is on the same fuse as one of the fans, horn is o.k.
could it be the relay and how, if i can, can it be checked, but doesn't explain the water coming out the expansion cap.
It is a '99 4.0l.
Thanks in advance to any helpful replies.
Glyn.

[mongoose]

The water came out of the expansion cap as it got too hot,this is unless you overfilled the tank,in which case any extra will just overflow.The otter switch could have failed,try shorting across the two connectors to bypass it,and the fans should come on if the otter is faulty,or the connection is poor/dirty.It could be a poor earth to the otter switch.in which case the easiest way to find this is to replace the solid black wire to the otter with a temporary new earth,connectect it to the alternator earth for instance.Assuming the fuse is definately ok(sometimes its in a different place to what handbook says)You can basically test the relay by putting 12v across is a listening for the clicking sound that it should make(this insn't foolproof but if it doen't click its usually duff).Hope this helps,Mike

Edited to add,it looks like your car might have individual fan circuits due to its age?In this case you would be very unlucky if both relays have failed,so i'd look elsewhere first if this is the case!

Edited by mongoose on Saturday 29th July 17:04

[The Hood]

Thanks for the reply Mongoose.
I have cleaned the connectors on the otter switch, they seem o.k.
I have cleaned the connectors on the fans as they were lying in the tray below the fans and were dirty they are now o.k (the inside of the connectors for the fans are full of vaseline? to stop water i suppose)
I have used the paper clip and fans come on o.k.
will go for a drive to see if o.k after the cleaning as i have done a search on here and has been known to do the job, but will take the paperclip as a fall back.would this be o.k??
Glyn.

[mongoose]

The Hood said:

Thanks for the reply Mongoose.
I have cleaned the connectors on the otter switch, they seem o.k.
I have cleaned the connectors on the fans as they were lying in the tray below the fans and were dirty they are now o.k (the inside of the connectors for the fans are full of vaseline? to stop water i suppose)
I have used the paper clip and fans come on o.k.
will go for a drive to see if o.k after the cleaning as i have done a search on here and has been known to do the job, but will take the paperclip as a fall back.would this be o.k??
Glyn.

Hi Glyn,i would take the paperclip,or similar,to enable you to run the fans,yes.It does sound very much like your otter switch is faulty and can no longer be trusted though.Sometimes otters just stop working altogether,and other times they can become intermittent in my experience,i'd replace when in doubt(£10 from local motorfactors).The vaseline in the connectors would be to stop water ingress.

[The Hood]

Thanks again for that.
I will replace on monday and hopefully no problems on the run tommorrow.
Glyn.