otter voltage?

[turtle400]

The cooling fans on my 4.0 griffith have stopped working. They don't even work when I connect the two wires on the otter switch together?

checked the fuse - OK
swapped fan relay for horn relay - made no difference
measured the voltage at the otter switch but it's only about 3 volts ??
and there's no voltage at the fans so I reckon they're OK it's just they're not getting any juice.
I've even taken the relay cover off to see if it's switching but it doesn't seem to be working.

Any ideas? bad earth perhaps?

Thanks
Adam

[turtle400]

I should learn how to use a multimeter. I suspected my voltage reading was incorrect. Checked it again today and it's reading 9.9 at the otter.

[david beer]

Try connecting the two otter wires to a known earth, ie engine. Maybe that the otter earth wire is "floating". 9.9 does seem a little low though, is that engine off ? Also try removing relay and connected a wire between pins 87 and 30, this over rides the otter low current side, but it is 30 amp surge so be carefull ! It will be "live" even without ignition on.

[turtle400]

I've traced the problem back to a bad connector block that's accessible via the inspection panel for the heater blower in the passenger inner wing. I'd removed the panel a week or so ago to investigate a faulty fan and must have disturbed something.

I've cleaned up the connections as much as I could but I still think it's a bit dodgy. Can these be fixed/replaced. This particular connector is a monster.

http://img12.photobucket.com/albums/v31/evesham/Pug/P7200006.jpg

>> Edited by turtle400 on Tuesday 20th July 12:06

[red griff 500]

I've just solved a similar problem on my 500.

The system is designed such that the otter switch pulls the relay energising coil down to earth, NOT 12v (see wiring diagram in SH's book). This means that one wire from the Otter switch should go to your relay, and the other should be connected to earth. You should therefore find that the other side of your relay energising coil is connected to 12v. So when the Otter switch closes, and connects the relay to earth you have a potential difference of 12v across your coil which will make it oprerate. My otter switch "earth" was connected to something which varies between 1.3v and 7v (I believe that it was connected to a tapping on the alternator --- bizarre!). This means that the potential difference across my relay coil was 12v-7v=5v which is not enough to operate it properly.

All I did was to find another earth (0v this time) and connect my otter switch to it. It works perfectly now.

Hope this helps

Steve