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Electric Fan Now Installed

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jerrybny

jerrybny

Jedi Knight
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Well I got the Electric Fan installed. I removed the old mechnical fan and billet. I used a fan eliminator kit. I had my local radiator guy install a bung on the bottom of the radiator and I installed a SPAL 185 degree sensor. I'm using a Hayden 14" fan. I filled the radiator and stuck the wifes meat thermometer in the radiator and fired the ole 73 TR6 up. At 185 the fan came on and cooled the engine right down and then shut off. I'm so HAPPY. The only thing I'm wondering is why the temp gauge is almost 3/4 when the coolant temp is only 185. I know the temp sending unit is probably good as I replaced it last year. I may be an old **** but I always sorry when I see a temp gauge go past the half way mark. Has anyone else measured their water temp and noted the temp gauge position?
Is this normql? Thanks
 
I have a 185 temp sensor too and it does the same thing.

Can you tell a difference in power? I changed so much stuff when I installed my fan that I would never know if it helped any.
 
Hello Jerry,

it sounds as if your temperature gauge is about right. If you expect to see it read about half at 185 then full scale would equate to 370 degrees, so is an illogical scale for meausuring water temperature.

Alec
 
Jerry,
That Spal sensor works great doesn't it. When I had my aluminum radiator made up, they were told to put a bung in the bottom tank. They did, but they use an Army/Navy bung (their boo boo) and there are no sensors threaded for this, in the world. They offered to fix it (like I was gonna take it out) so therin lies the reason for my installing in the down pipe. Glad yours worked out. Did you install a manual override switch? Easy to do, just read Dan Masters' book or ground out the sensor. I put a light on the dash as well, lot's of bling-bling-blinking.

Bill
 
Alec is right. I recall talking to a design engineer from Nissan several years back, noting that the temp gauge on my then MGB was always about 3/4 toward hot, while on any Nissan product, it was always about 1/4 toward hot. He just smiled and said that they can make the normal reading anywhere they like. Of course that's correct, but is one of those things that is startling to hear.
 
Haven't taken it for a ride yet. Too much salt on the roads here in Ny. I usually don't take it out until around April or May when all the salt on the roads is gone.
 
[ QUOTE ]
...If you expect to see it read about half at 185 then full scale would equate to 370 degrees, so is an illogical scale for meausuring water temperature...

[/ QUOTE ]

FWIW - on a TR3 the temp gauge is numbered, 185 is the midpoint and it is quite accurate (using an infrared temp sensor on the tstat housing. The gauge does not start at 0 -- more like 90F and the reading is not linear.

On the TR4 they went to Celsius and made a hash of it... the 'normal' range is at 70 degrees C which is something like 158F. I think they may have messed up the conversion since if you do the math operations in the wrong order [ (70+32)*9/5 instead of (70*9/5)+32 you get 70C=184F instead of the correct 70C=158F. I think it was about that point where they gave up numbering them altogether.

I would expect you to see the gauge go well above midway in your test if you had the meat thermometer in the rad (in front of the tstat) and the sending unit is behind the tstat. The exact results would depend on what temp tstat you are using.
 
Jerry,
Running electric fan also, 185° sensor (bottom of radiator), gauge went to
3/4 and sometimes beyond before on/off fan cycling commenced. Was using 185° thermostat, changed to 165°, gauge now stays happily at mid range or slightly above throughout fan cycling. Engine runs happily.
 
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