Adding Fan, Need Relay Help

[Hoppe]

I know many don't approve but I am trying to add a fan to my rear condenser just to get a little a/c help. I figure the low cost made it a no loose situation.

I purchased a small fan and a Spal fan relay kit. The instructions provided are more for connecting to a newer car up front and with thermostatic control, so I need some help. I put a fender condenser in recently and had no trouble with the wiring but the instructions were specific to the car. The fan is tripped but the condenser clutch and that is what I want to do with the new fan

Following is the diagram from Spal:


So I connected the yellow wire to the 2 position in the engine compartment fuse panel, the red wire to the fan, the grey wire to the compressor wire harness, and the orange to ground. The fender condenser fan was already tapped into the number three position.

Any help would be appreciated. I have done something wrong because everything still works except for the new fan.

Hoppe

[rsscotty]

On some relays, the 85 & 86 terminals are specific to being ground or switched 12v. If you get it wrong it will damage the relay. Can you post a pic of the side of the relay showing the schematic?

[kuehl]

A common relay used for many applications is a SPDT relay:

Pins/Goes To

30 to battery or a good power source that can handle 15 amps max,
fuse this with a 15 amp fuse inline fuse

85 to body ground

86 is the trigger that turns on the relay, say for example you have a "trinary" pressure switch and you want the fan to turn on at xxx PSI, your 'sending unit'
or say you connect it to the compressor clutch power wire so when the compressor engages the fan comes on

87 goes to the fan positive, your fan's positive wire is either blue or red,

your fan's black wire will be to body ground.

[Hoppe]

Originally Posted by rsscotty

On some relays, the 85 & 86 terminals are specific to being ground or switched 12v. If you get it wrong it will damage the relay. Can you post a pic of the side of the relay showing the schematic?

Here you go. Thanks.

[Hoppe]

Originally Posted by kuehl

A common relay used for many applications is a SPDT relay:

Pins/Goes To

30 to battery or a good power source that can handle 15 amps max,
fuse this with a 15 amp fuse inline fuse

85 to body ground

86 is the trigger that turns on the relay, say for example you have a "trinary" pressure switch and you want the fan to turn on at xxx PSI, your 'sending unit'
or say you connect it to the compressor clutch power wire so when the compressor engages the fan comes on

87 goes to the fan positive, your fan's positive wire is either blue or red,

your fan's black wire will be to body ground.

Unfortunately, the relay is not clearly labeled is to number. This is unlike the replay the came with the fender condenser.

[kuehl]

get yourself a common 25 to 40 amp type fog light/AC relay, it will have pin outs like this:





Run a wire off one of the fuses in the engine compartment fuse panel, fuse closest to the bumper to terminal 30: install an inline fuse of 15 amps between the engine compartment fuse and terminal 30

85 to body ground

86 is the trigger that turns on the relay, create a "Y" splitter; that is a wire connected to the AC power spade terminal over by the oil filter, with 2 wires branching off, one wire to the compressor clutch (or if you have a binary pressure switch wire it to that), and the other wire goes to terminal 86 on the relay

87 goes to the fan positive, your fan's positive wire is either blue or red,

your fan's black wire will be to body ground.

[Hoppe]

After beating my head in and pulling the relay a part, I found the terminal labels. Thanks, Kuehl, that solved one problem as Spal had power connection coming off the opposite terminal. That said, the biggest problem is colorblind Chinese manufacturing.
I went cheap on the fan and discovered, by accident, that the blue wire was the ground and the black was the positive. Bass ackwards.

[kuehl]

Hmm.
What is the Spal PN on the fan.
"usually", their blue is hot and black is ground.

[zedsn]

Could the fan be a push pull type and wired one way goes on way and wired the other way goes the other way?

[Hoppe]

Kuehl: Not a Spal fan which is probably where I went wrong. I did it on the cheap, thus my comment re: Chinese mfg.

Zedsn; It is a push/pull but the wiring does not appear to change. I was able to flip the blades to accomplish the same thing.

[Quicksilver]

Originally Posted by Hoppe

Here you go. Thanks.

Wow! That is a deceptive diagram cast into the relay cover.

The "87" is shown next to two of the connections. The bottom connection is supposed to be the "86" even though that is printed way below it. Kinda stupid...

[donporfi]

Hoppe,
you say you connected the GREY wire to the compressor wire harness and the ORANGE to ground.
What signal do you get to the GREY wire ? Do you get 12 V ? If you do not get 12v the relay will not trip.

[Hoppe]

Originally Posted by zedsn

Could the fan be a push pull type and wired one way goes on way and wired the other way goes the other way?

OK, I have to admit I am an idiot. I had all the connections right from the start. I hooked everything back up and could not get the fan to run. All of a sudden it did briefly spin, very briefly. Turns out I did not have the fan itself ground very well. The relay was grounded ok but no all that great either. With every thing grounded nice and tight, the fan fun but it still pushed, no mater what way the blades were on. The I realized no mater which way the blades were flipped the shape was the same. I changed back to blue as power and black as ground and it pulled like I wanted.

Sorry for wasting a post. I should have looked at all the basics first. Lesson learned, get as tight a ground as you have a positive connection.