Overheating probs.

[Silvervanman]

Hi all, hope im not alone with this prob. She cruises fine at about 80 deg, but hit traffic and in 5 mins shes at 100 degs and steaming ! Taken out the radiator and sending for a flush and possible recore, will renew a few hoses and hope to wire one of the fans to a dash mounted switch. Ran the car in the garage till the passenger side fan came on at 102 deg but no sign of drivers side one at all. Took fans out and tested, both fine .Seem
to recall a post on here that fans should kick in around 92 degs and 95 degs ,is this true and how do you fix it that they do ?
Thanks in advance.
SVM

[volospian]

The temp gauge is supposed to be quite innacurate in what reading it provides, so it's possible that the one fan coming on at an indicated 102 is actually only 92 and everything is fine (as far as that fan is concerned).

I suppose there could be an electrical issue with firing the other fan? A wire melted through or a shot relay, perhaps?

[morebeanz]

You're obviously already looking at the sensible possibilities of leaks etc. These cars are sensitive to airlocks, etc, so make a big effort on bleeding the system.

The temp guage often over reads because of the path that the capillary has to take to get to the guage - it runs past some of the hottest parts of the engine! As long as both fans come on in sequence, then they are probably operating ok. If one is not coming on, then you clearly need to fix that. I lost a fan on mine, and found that the wiring for it had come loose and dragged itself to pieces on the tarmac under the car!

As an alternative Joospeed can adjust the ECU for the fans to come on cooler, or you could fit a manual override switch.

Best of luck.

[Steve_T]

The usual favourite with fans is corrosion occuring to the connectors. I'd give them a clean up first, if you haven't already. Other possibles are a failed pressure cap and a leaking radiator, both of which prevent the system from pressurising, which can in turn cause over heating. In terms of manually switching fans on, the ECU grounds out the relay to switch it, rather than applying 12 volts to the coil to energise it. If you want to manually switch the relay, the switch might be an alternative path from the fan relays' coils to ground, or parallel wiring to supply 12v and ground the coil.

Steve.

[LastCerbera]

Is it definitely steaming? I mean in this type of cold weather I often see waft's of steam come from mine, but know for a fact that it isn't overheating. With regards to the water temp gauge - pretty much ignore it. I used to get myself in a right old state seeing it shoot round to 110, but I have now got a second SPA electronic one fitted where the centre air vent was and it's clear to see the electronic gauge always shows at least 10 deg's less than the std capillary one. Even in central london traffic mine stays below 100 now.

Perhaps get someone with the diagnostics software/lead to plug it in to the ECU and see what the actual temp gets up to?

[kojak]

morebeanz said:

As an alternative Joospeed can adjust the ECU for the fans to come on cooler, or you could fit a manual override switch.

Best money i've spent on mine. Joospeed. Not heard that name for a while. You mean Trackcar.

http://www.track-car-solutions.co.uk/

[morebeanz]

kojak said:

Not heard that name for a while. You mean Trackcar.

http://www.track-car-solutions.co.uk/

Showing my PH age, sorry!

[thegreengoblet]

And check all of your jubilie clips - the original fitments are crap. I've had them leaking every so slightly when they are as tight as they will go. I've also had one that had completely broken in two - one day she simply lost all of her water after a burn out.