17" Electric Fan on 2.4liter Tacoma

Hello everyone. I was requested to post my thread here so it wouldn't be lost in the what have you done today thread so here it goes:

If you didn't already know my 96 Taco (Bernard) was a wreck I picked up for about $400. I've been trying to build it up back to street drivable under a budget (which I sometimes break due to poor self control).

One of the issues I had was that my clutch fan was locked and the blades were warped. I figured what a good opportunity to go electric. After doing a lot of research I decided to go with a 17" Hayden dual speed fan.

This is my first e-fan install so bear with me. But at least I plan on documenting my whole process.


First I needed a replacement shroud so I went Amazon for a

$79 DEPO 312-55034-301 Replacement Engine Cooling Fan Shroud (This product is an aftermarket product. It is not created or sold by the OE car company)

cheapo aftermarket version. . I also bought my Hayden Automotive 3817 Ultra-Cool High Performance Fan from there too.

Here is how it fits within the shroud.




This fan is 2.6 inches thick so there should be plenty of room to fit it without hitting the engine. I plan on using abs to cover the gap around the outer perimeter of the fan and the shroud. Basically I'm going to fuse/glue the abs plastic sheet to the inside of the shroud and cut out a hole just for the area of the fan that moves air. This way it will look like a factory clean job.

Anyhow here are the specs of the fan. Its the 3817 model.



ABS showed up today, unfortunately I have things I got to do today but I should have a little time tomorrow to cut this to size, cut out hole and hopefully fuse it to the inside of the shroud. BTW I got this

$27 ABS Sheet - .177" Thick, Black, 24" x 24" Nominal

ABS Sheet at amazon for $23 shipped.



Here is the ABS fit inside the shroud with clamps holding it. There is a little gap at the top and at the bottom. I plan on sealing those up with my plastics glue to keep it sealed.



Here I placed the fan on so I can trace the outer edge of the fan so I know where and how big to cut the hole out.



Here is the outline that I will use to make a slightly smaller hole. Below is the second line that I will actually be cutting out.




This is the type of industrial plastic glue that I use. We use it at our shop regularly and I've found it to work very well.



Here is the panel with the hole cut out and glued to the shroud. I'm going to let it set overnight before I mount the fan to it.


After waiting overnight to let the shroud dry. I flipped it over to add a little load-bearing stability. A couple of 1" x 1/4" aluminum strips, cut to fit within the inside of the shroud to help with the weight of the fan.



You can see the oversized washers and bolts that I used to secure the bottom of the aluminum strips to the bottom of the shroud. I painted them black so they would match and not look obvious.



Inside look of how the fan mounts. Having mounted the fan this way allows the fan to use the entire shroud in the manner it was intended (pulling air from all across the radiator). BTW, none of the bolts excess threading will actually touch the radiator. I already checked the depth and they clear with plenty of room.



Side and overhead view of shroud installed on radiator. Plenty of clearance. P.S. No need to install lower shroud lip as it is just redundant and would serve no actual purpose.




I will get into the wiring later. I haven't even ordered anything yet. I plan on making all the wiring extremely discrete so it looks no different than any other OEM wiring would look.

Part 2 Wiring


I finally decided on my wiring. At first I was going to use a couple of the Hayden probes but I couldn't get two in there at a time and not leak radiator fluid out of the hose. Plus i didn't like the stiff springy wire, since it didn't make for good discreet wiring. So I nixed that idea.

I then researched online and found this setup:

$86 Mishimoto MMFAN-CNTL-U18NPT Adjustable Radiator Fan Controller Kit, Includes NPT Temperature Sensor, Black

Mishimoto MMFAN-CNTL-U18NPT Black Adjustable Fan Controller Kit


and

$29 Water Temperature Sensor Adapter - 32mm - Black Mishimoto

Mishimoto MMWHS-32-BK Black 32mm Water Temperature Sensor Adapter


I didn't like the inline fuse holder and I wanted to mount it all in a water resistant box so I got these:

$9 ESUPPORT Car Truck 4 Way Circuit Standard ATO Blade Fuse Box Block Holder 12V 24V

E Support Car Truck 4 Way Circuit Standard ATO Blade Fuse Box Block Holder 12V 24V


and

$35 BUD Industries CU-347 Aluminum Econobox 7.39" L x 4.70" W x 3.21" H, Natural

BUD Industries CU-347 Aluminum Econobox, 7-3/8" Length x 4-11/16" Width x 3-13/64" Height, Natural Finish


Yes I measured it all out so I knew it was all going to fit. Here is the early fitting process.



Painted the box flat black to match with the rest of the under hood items and I mounted it where I had the most space. Not to mention where a couple of pre-existing nuts were already in place.



Now this is where I mounted the sensor and sensor adapter. I did this fully intending to kill two birds with one stone. I didn't cut my hose I actually bought a section of hose to add to the length of my original radiator hose. I noticed that originally my hose practically hugged my alternator. Since I plan on adding a larger alternator I wanted more room so I inserted the adapter at the end of my original hose and added a 2 1/2" bit of hose to connect the adapter back to the thermostat housing. I also chose this area because this is where I want my probe reading temp at (after passing through the radiator and before going back into the engine).



After testing the wired unit and passing on the first try, I closed up the "fan box".



After thoughts:

This fan really pulls air. It was only on for at most 15 seconds before shutting down again. Even though the fan control unit is preset to 180 degrees on and 160 degrees off it is actually adjustable for different temps via a little screw on the controller. The presets were just right for me so I left it.

My fan is actually dual speed but I just wired it to full speed because with this particular controller you can't do two speeds due to the way it is wired via negative pulse.

The controller does have an optional wiring for a/c by tapping into the positive a/c wire. So when you turn on the a/c your fan will kick on no matter what the probe temp is. I haven't actually done this yet but I did test it via wire tap. A nice feature which I will definitely do in the future.

All in all I am very happy so far.

 

Looks good. Nice work.

 

Mikerocosms
I just removed my mechanical fan and installed a 12" & 14" Delta PAG fan kit. However, nobody in my podunk town can figure out the trinary switch for the fans & A/C compressor. Did you ever add a trinary switch for the fan to kick on when the compressor kicks on?

 

I tried a few things over the years with my setup. Being that I live in New Mexico and it is ungodly hot here I chose to tap into where the A/C button pigtail. When the button is pressed in, one wire is powered. It's on the same circuit as the little light on the A/C button. Yes the fan is on all the time when the A/C button is depressed (on) but it really helps cool the condenser. My truck is still currently the coldest a/c of my fleet.

If I were you, set the 14 fan to kick on when your truck gets hot and set the 12 to tap into the A/C button wire. That way it only comes on when you actually turn on the A/C. If you want to get really fancy get a 12v delay board. That's what I did. I set mine to about an 8 second delay so even when I start my truck the fan won't come on as I'm trying to start the truck. Keeps the amperage draw down. 8 seconds later your fan will start.

I used this:

$10 UCTRONICS DC 12V Time Delay Relay Module for Smart Home, Tachograph, GPS, PLC Control, Industrial Control, Electronic Experiment, Arduino Robot

UCTRONICS DC 12V Time Delay Relay Module

But you could try this new version if you wish:

$20 UCTRONICS DC 12V Programmable Time Delay Relay Module with Metal Enclosure, On Delay and Off Delay Timer for Automobile, Raspberry Pi, Industrial Control, and Other Automatic Control Projects

UCTRONICS DC 12V Programmable Time Delay Relay Module

 

I know it's too late but HDPE would be a substantially better choice than ABS for hot environments

 

Nice work! I gotta say I am not a huge fan of electric fans since the viscous fan can move so much air, but it looks like you have a nice setup.

 

How so? HDPE starts to soften and warp at 128F. It definitely gets hotter than that under the hood.

Almost all automotive plastics are ABS.

 

Maybe he meant PA66, that's what most underhood/drivetrain plastics are.

 

Correct. I did have issue with the abs. Not much but it didn't hold up as well. I've since remade my fan shroud out of aluminum.

 

Mine has served me well. Other than the plastic shroud I now have an aluminum shroud. Never overheats and A/C runs hella cool.

Been 8 years with that same fan though.

I also had to open the lid to the fuse box I used so air could circulate. That got hot and melted the fuse carrier. I upgraded that to maxifuse.

 

I'm happy to hear this, I am fitting an OEM fan from a ford to the stock toyota shroud to control with PWM with my standalone computer. Hoping to do something similar to what you've done but I was going to try to mount the fan support structure to the shroud with epoxy instead

 

I'll have to take a picture of my aluminum shroud and how I did it. It's surprisingly easier than you think. But you might have to get a aftermarket fan with mounting tabs. I'll try to get a picture up by this weekend.

 

I my experience ABS will warp very quickly and since it's much more rigid to start with you get a bubbling effect. Whereas with HDPE you start flexible and remain so - it's more predictable in that regard. I think most automotive ABS may be fiberglass reinforced which is a different story. Better plastics (sheets) are hard to get ahold of for home use so ya aluminum was probably the best way to go

I'd never heard of PA66

 

Glass fiber reinforced nylon, basically what most power tools and heavy duty plastics for automotive are.