Broken down

[Paulprior]

Just noticed while stopping at lights in town that I have steam coming out of the bonnet and the temp gauge off the scale, pulled over and switched off but fans are not running, shorted the otter switch but no change, any quick ideas on how to get the fans running quickly and easily to get me home ??

[phillpot]

Crude but do you have a length of wire you can rig up a live direct from battery?



Could be a relay, do you know which one control;s them? Pinch one from somewhere else you don't need (horn?).

[TheRainMaker]

Relays in the footwell, check fuses

[TheRainMaker]

[Paulprior]

My passenger footwell is a bit of a mess at the moment while looking at other issues, anyway i decided to let it cool down to 60, filled with water then carefully watched the gauge while driving home, it was mainly country lanes so i could keep moving, fortunately it only reached 70 so tomorrow i will find out what has gone wrong and hope i havent done any other damage by heating the engine up so much, is there any easy way to check ??

[dlewis]

Check thermostat is fully opening every heat cycle or just replace.

They will take some short term stick.

Dave

[Steve_D]

Start by looking for 12v at the fan connections below the rad with the otter shorted. These connection sit in just about the worst position for corrosion.

Then check relays and fuses. Some cars have one relay so that will be relay 1 and Fuse 1. Cars with two relays will be Relays 7 & 8 plus fuses 3, 9, 19.

Steve

[QBee]

I agree with Steve D, I will have 50p on it being the wiring connections lying in all the wet and muck under the radiator.

Find them (one for each fan), pull them apart, bridge out the otter switch (i pull the wires half off the switch and contact the two otter switch terminals together with a screwdriver), turn ignition on, then push the connectors under the rad back together again whilst wiggling them. As soon as you make a decent contact you will see the fans come on, one at a time. Take apart, clean and reassemble.

I have done 43000 miles in my Chimaera and have never had a fuse in the car blow.
My only fuse to blow was the 100 amp one by the sump.
In my experience, bad connections and bad earths are much more common

[Paulprior]

That’s 50p you owe me Qbee, but seriously no one was going to guess this correctly as you see below I have an extra relay hanging around that just happened to be for the fans

It’s the one on the right if the photo doesn’t rotate as it normally does, there is a live from the battery through an in-line fuse and it was just kind of hanging in position but no contact, cut it off and fitted a new one and all is well.
Below is what I can see of my fuse box with the battery in position, this can’t be write is it, I can’t even see the fuses

I was going to tart up my engine bay over winter, but now I’m thinking maybe I should put the fuse box behind the passenger seat like some others have done, what I have at the moment is ridiculous