cooling fan wiring melting

[SuperHO]

when i bought my car, it was wired by the PO for a manual switch on the fan. when my fan motor nuked itself last year, a bought an aftermarket fan to put in it's place and just used the wire, put in a rocker switch, and grounded it to the intake bracket bolt. it works fine, but after maybe 5-10 minutes of operation sitting in traffic, the smell of burnt wire permeates my car and a small wisp of smoke has been seen more than once. why is it doing this?

 

[Joe_SHO]

Follow the wire, does it come in contact with something hot? Is it too small of a gauge for the current it delivers? Are the connections loose?

-Joe

 

[gmail]

sounds like you dont have big enough wires or something...

i highly recommend fixing this fan issue..

my 92 i got had the same deal where someone put a switch on and no matter how much i tried to remember to leave it off i messed up. the one day i was driving and forgot it going about 70 down the road when i started to smell wires burning followed by the skin on my legs burning with hot dripping plastic since they thought putting the switch under the steering column was the best place.

after that i got to where i was going then figured id take the time to work it out, i put a new fan in, rewired it the way it should be and replaced the CCRM and what do you know the fan worked like a charm ever since.

 

[SuperHO]

it's got 16 guage wiring goin from battery to switch to fan. i don't think 12 guage would fit, would it?

 

[St Louis SHO]

factory is 10g iirc....

 

[Storm-Chaser]

Ford had three separate recalls for the cooling system fan, all related to fan-failure and possible electrical fire. Look-up the following recalls:

• 97V019
  
  
• 01V39
  
  
• 01I011

I didn't take time to read them, but the last two appear to be the same recall, with a change in the recall status.

 

[SuperHO]

wow...10 guage? you sure? if that's the case, i've got some 8 guage floating around the garage...maybe i'll just use that with a slightly more robust rocker switch.

 

[Joe_SHO]

Probably wouldn't be a horrible idea to use a relay rather than running all that current through a rocker switch.