AE86 Electric Fan Install

AE86 Electric Fan Install

Recently I purchased two 10in electric fans to replace the clutch fan that was on my engine. I have an AE86 and the fan clutch was going out so I figured why throw another junkyard fan clutch on the car when I can install something newer. I wanted one of the fans to work with a temp switch and the other a normal switch (for heavy use or the nasty heat waves) The one on a normal switch I wired to a relay and just used a switch to kick the relay on. The temp switch was a little more tricky. First I will list the parts that I used to get the fans running.

Manual switch fan:

1 10 inch fan off e-bay
1 small on-off rocker switch
1 SPDT Relay: (Single Pole Double Throw Relay, also known as a Bosch type relay)
1 Fuse

Thermo switch fan

1 10 inch fan off e-bay
2 SPDT Relays
1 Fuse
1 Water outlet and fan temp switch off of an AE82 (FWD Corolla with a 4AC)

To start, first remove the fan shroud and fan/clutch from the water pump. Make sure to follow the proper procedure for doing that. Then fasten the pully on to the water pump. I did this with bolts and washers. Make sure that the bolts do not go in deep enough to hit the water pump when spinning.

Mounting the fans to the radiator is pretty self explanatory. I personally used oil cooler mounts that go through the fins of the radiator, but you can use whatever floats your boat. I just did not feel like custom fabbing some brackets as I did not have time nor money. sad.gif

I swapped the water outlet from my AE86 with the one from the AE82. The AE82 one also uses a thermostat seal to to fit properly. Just look at the one that you get from the junkyard and you will understand.

Then I started the wiring. Running the wires was a PITA because I decided to use the ACC (accessory) as the power source for the switches. I also wanted a manual switch so I needed to mount it to my dash. That I will leave out because it really depends on where you want the switch. I used one of the blank slots in my dash. The ones the factory puts in there for other switches like power mirrors and the defroster.

Wiring the one on the switch was easy because it is just a simple relay. Below is a basic diagram of what was done.

The other switch was a little more complicated. I needed to make one basically reverse polarity. In order to trigger the relay that supplies power to the fan, I needed a positive signal. The fan switch is Normally Closed (meaning that it will keep the circuit closed when it is cold, and break the circuit once it gets hot) and this would create a switch that basically grounds it's self out. What I did was use the first relay to reverse the signal so that when the switch breaks the circuit, it sends the positive charge so that the fan control relay would turn on.

Once that is done, warm the car up to operating temperature. The temp will look like it is higher because the fan clutch will normally keep the engine at a more constant temperature. The fan switch only turns on once the liquid near it gets to a certain temp (i did not find this out, but since the AE82 had a 4ac, I figured it would work). I recommend that if you are doing this you have a better temp gauge than the stock one so that you can actually tell how hot your coolant is.

Thanks to some very helpful sites:

The 12 Volt for all the relay information
Dreams of Drifting for the idea to use the AE82 water outlet and sensor

Please note that anything on this page that I have written is for REFERENCE ONLY. I am not responsible for any damage that my be caused by the use of any information used on this site. If you do not have the mechanical knowledge to fully understand what is being explained, then I recommend taking your vehicle to a fully qualified mechanic. If you would like any more detail, or have any questions please feel free to contact me via the Contact page.