well, the day started allright, finished fitting my scoop, car now stays under 110deg for 20km of hilly 100kph roads, found a way to fit my bullbar (will be time consuming but will work) took the car to a dub shop and the guy told me all i had to do was a minor mod to my shroud and a thermo fan sucking through the rad, so went out and bought the thermo. got home, fitted it, feels super powerful - much better then the little ones on the other side of the rad, went for a spin again, car sat really low temp (i wired the thermo for full time until i had tested it) then began to creep up, and continued to do so at an alarming rate, pulled over, before even reaching 100kph, rad had already boiled, then noticed that fuse in fan relay had had a severe meltdown (and taken part of the relay casing with it) disconnected my new fan to remove the extra draw on the relay, borrowed a fuse, and found that now only one of my original fans was working. limped home at 105 - 110deg stopping a couple of times and not doing over 60. now very upset and feelign very unlucky :mad

GRRR!
had a bit of a play around, replaced the 15amp fuse with a 30amp, got the fans (1 small one and the new one) up and running, jeeze that new one has balls, went out for about an hours drive in the dark. with fans on full time only doing upto 80kph temp possibly got upto 90 but was never over 80deg when i stopped at lights to check, so at least the fan is doing more then enough around town (i know, i will re-wire it to only come on over a certain temp later once everything else is sorted), but got near home and noticed that the dash lights were getting dim, and the headlights, then the car started to surge, luckily made it to the top of the hill and into a side street, by that time the emergencies wouldnt even function properly, left her running, jumped out, flicked over to my 2nd battery (damn glad i installed that!) and al was good enough to get me home. now i believe my alt is properly hooked up (has slowly charged my batt, got it from 12.2v to 12.5v in the first couple of days of being wired in), and Im pretty sure my alarm isnt sucking any juice (only hooked it up again yesterday) so am i left to believe that the alt simply cant keep up with headlights and thermo fans when used together!?! if so this leaves me in a very sticky situation!

Have you got an alternator or a generator? Coz if it's a gennie it certainly will not cope with lots of current being drawn continually.

Another thing, each fan needs separate relay, but you probaly know that now.

Now to work out how many amp fuse you need the formula is,
Current (amps) = Power (watts) / Voltage (volts).

Do you know how many watts it is?

[Edited on 8/6/2005 by pete wood]

havent checked the watts yet, relay is pretty hardcore one, so is coping for the moment, but i will be re-routing the new fan off the rad's thermo switch once i know whether it is going to keep the highway temps down. car has alternator, and i believe it is the highre rated oif the subi units, just remembered though that there was a squeaking noise comingfrom somethere at random times all of yesterday, so hopefully the alt has come loose in its bracket and is slipping in its belt, fingers crossed

Thermo fans pull a lot of amps and will suck a battery dry very quickly. To check your alt / charge system start car, and measure battery volts, then turn thermos on and measure again. If it is not over 13V then you have issues and your alt is not working properly. Check your regulator to see if it working and also read your alternator to see what amp it is.

EA 81 and 82 cam with either a 45 or 65 amp alternator. Both should handle your draw.

actually, ea81 came with 50, 55 or 60amp alt's, i have a 55amp with a built in reg, and whadaya know, its cactus. had a play today then took it too an auto electrician, he agreed its dead and is taking a look at it for me tomorrow. hopefulluy now that i have setup the fan to come on at 85 and go off at 80 and with a new/fixed alt i should be right

You should see if you can upgrade to a bigger alternator at the same time. mmm, big driving lights and stereo....

well, the actual alt wasnt too bad, turns out the reg was catcus from the day i installed it all, so $160 later my alt looks and works like new again :thumb