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  • Bonnet fan

    Hi All.

    Due to the fact that we’re towing down to Cornwall soon fully loaded and after seeing the temp guage soar to over 115C last time out on a long hill, I’ve been looking at ways to try to keep the air flowing quicker through the radiator. I got in touch with Kenlowe and spoke to one of their guys about changing the viscous fan for an electric model. Their advice was that if you tow in hot climes then the viscous fan is actually better, providing it’s working properly (mine is). So we got round to talking about a bonnet fan instead and I decided to get one. Cost was just over £96 delivered. I know someone else on here mentioned the naff plastic cowl (it is) but it should help to direct the airflow out of the engine bay and up over the windscreen.

    Anyway, as I’ve been suffering withdrawal symptoms this last week because of the loss of the forum, I decided to go ahead and fit it over this weekend. The first problem was deciding where to position it. The obvious place would be over the exhaust/turbo area but there is a specific note in the instructions that this can get so hot that it could cause problems for the fan mechanism. So in the end I opted to position it over the inlet side, also because the fan protrudes about 45mm into the engine bay and it would have been very close to the hot exhaust manifold on the other side. There isn’t that much clearance on the nearside but there is enough, at least on a 3.0L 2nd gen. The pictures hopefully show how I positioned it.

    The fan has a 10in circumference and because of the cowl, has to be positioned to allow the cowl to fit the shape of the bonnet. This entailed having to cut out one of the support ribs and trim back the main centre rib to get the fan to fit. Again, hopefully you can see from the photos. I started by using trial & error and a pair of compasses to work out where the centre of the fan should be, to take out as little of the ribs as possible. I then put a small dent in the underside of the bonnet in the centre position with a centre punch. Then closing down the bonnet I used the centre punch to tap back the dent I’d just made to give the compasses a centre to work from whilst I scribed a 10in circle in the top face of the bonnet, then put masking take around the outside of the hole to stop the jigsaw marking the paintwork. Then came the bit I hesitated over….. making the first hole for the jigsaw as after that there’s no going back.

    Cutting the hole was fairly easy, as the metal of the bonnet and the ribs isn’t that thick. Once the centre circle was out it was time to offer up the fan to see how it would fit. First try was not good, as although the centre of the fan is 10in, there’s an overlap of about 1cm all round for the body of the fan and for the fixing points (see photo’s). This entailed cutting out more of the side of the centre rib and a bit more of the bottom and outside diagonal rib with a pair of metal cutting shears. Again, fairly easy because of the thinness of the metal.

    Once there was enough clearance it was time to offer up the fan and mark up the points for the fixing bolts and drill the holes. By this time it was getting on a bit on Saturday so I positioned the cover and drilled a couple of holes just to hold it down to cover the hole in the bonnet overnight.

    Next morning it was on with the fitting. Once the fan motor was in and bolted up it was on with the wiring, although first I ran a couple of wires to the battery just to make sure the fan worked OK. To be safe I’ve used a relay to control the positive power feed and taken a feed off the nearside battery positive, through an inline blade fuse holder to terminal 30 on the relay. The blue positive wire from the fan goes to terminal 86, an earth feed goes from terminal 85 to the screw holding the relay to the inner wing, as does the negative wire from the fan. The switch wire was then taken from terminal 87, through the bulkhead and along to the three holes behind the gear lever, as I had two spare bays here already filled with coin holders. I did at this point consider relocating the ECT switch to behind the gear lever as well as it’s a bit of a stretch to reach it on the move where it’s normally positioned but the switch and wire connector are quite long and would not fit in the space under the back of the centre consul.

    The illuminated switch supplied by Kenlowe is far smaller than a standard Toyota switch. I thought about cutting out the bottom of one of the coin holders to take the switch but that seemed like a difficult job and would have caused problems if I’d broken it. In the end I used the switch holder that came with the kit, cutting off the sides and ends so that the remainder sat nicely in the hole left by one of the coin holders. Before fixing it in with hot melt glue I ran the wires for the switch earth to a point on the bracket holding the radio in place and then looked for an ignition controlled live feed to the switch. Easiest way was to connect into the feed wire for the cigar lighter (remember to refit the cigar lighter feed to its component after you’ve made the connection. I didn’t and had to take it apart again when I found my tyre inflator wouldn’t run!). Once it was all connected it was time to try it out and thankfully everything worked OK.

    Final part was to paint and fix the cowl to the bonnet. All thanks to Halfrauds who don’t keep ANY Toyota spec Green paint and the cap colour of the one that looked nearest was so far out. At least it’s better than white plastic until my local Toyota main dealer can get me a spray can of the correct colour but it’s a bit garish at present. Now to see if it makes any difference towing the caravan uphill and down dale to Truro this Saturday in glorious sunshine (I hope)!

    As an extra I've also added a couple of photo's of my supplimentary water temp guage and temp sender conversion (sorry TonyN but I managed to crack the alloy on the hole you cut for me in the casting whilst trying to stop a leak) and, just to prove that GREEN surfs are the fastest, a pic of my 160mph speedo!
    Attached Files
    Last edited by Tallyman; 10 July 2006, 22:19.
    Mike G

  • #2
    Nice job Mike, I'm in the middle of doing a similar thing only with two smaller vent's either side with two 12v pooter fans on each one, Yours should be more effective though, only useing these cos i did'nt have to buy em, Have you don the electric fan switch mod as well,
    Attached Files
    Too young to die and too old to give a toss

    Comment


    • #3
      Have you had chance to test what difference it makes to the
      temperatures yet?

      Comment


      • #4
        Ian619 why have you got the vents facing foreward? would back wards not be better? as you are drawing air out of the engine bay.

        Comment


        • #5
          errrm, yeah! Why?

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by ssray
            Ian619 why have you got the vents facing foreward? would back wards not be better? as you are drawing air out of the engine bay.
            Well the vents are uasualy fitted to bus roofs, Inside is a series of baffels and the idea is that they use the air passing through them to suck up air from inside, they have louvre vents at both ends, two rows of three at the front and two rows of two at the back, plus im adding two fans to each one,
            hopefully they should help a bit, probably not as much as that bl00dy great fan Mike's fitted, that really should move some air,
            Too young to die and too old to give a toss

            Comment


            • #7
              Hi all,

              No I haven't had a chance to test it out properly yet. That should happen on Saturday on the way to Truro (fingers crossed!!), although when coming back from filling the tank tonight the extra temp guage did seem to be showing a bit lower temp than usual, even without the fan running.

              Yes, it does move a lot of air; just sticking it on when the car is stationary seems to create a gale out of the exit from the cowl. Should be even more when moving. The hole should also help to move air out anyway even without the fan on. We'll see if I've spent wisely this weekend.

              No, I haven't done the electric fan switch mod. I presume you mean the one on the aircon rad, as that's the only original equipment radiator electric fan on mine. It's something I'm going to look at later.

              I was thinking about pop riviting the cowl on, so that when I get round to respraying it with the correct colour it will look a little more like it's meant to be there. However, having thought about it, if the fan needs maintenance or repair it would be harder to remove the cowl if its riveted, although the black roofing sealant that I spread around the edge of the cowl will also tend to make it difficult to remove anyway.
              Mike G

              Comment


              • #8
                Brass pan head bolts are always my favourites for visible fixings.
                Don't rust up, and won't need drilling out like rivets. Plus, they look
                nice. Nice job, BTW Mike.
                Last edited by MattF; 12 July 2006, 22:22.

                Comment


                • #9
                  Have you had chance to get the other vent fitted yet, Ian?

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    if i do go back to a viscous fan then that looks a brill idea
                    neat jobby by the way
                    Surf.gone but not forgottendisco now gone aswell

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      cant wait for it to get cold so we can find out if all these heated windscreen mods have worked...
                      it's in me shed, mate.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Originally posted by ian619
                        Well the vents are uasualy fitted to bus roofs, Inside is a series of baffels and the idea is that they use the air passing through them to suck up air from inside, they have louvre vents at both ends, two rows of three at the front and two rows of two at the back, plus im adding two fans to each one,
                        hopefully they should help a bit, probably not as much as that bl00dy great fan Mike's fitted, that really should move some air,
                        well i aint getting a bus in portsmouth on a rainy day
                        Only Toyota can get you out of shite

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Hi guys, OK first, i had to go to brighton yesterday and its a mixture of motorways and nose to tail jams, it was about the same temp day as the last
                          time i went and the temp gauge (aftermarket) went over the 100 then in a jam causeing the brown stain effect, This time it hardly went over 90 and this is with just the holes in the hood, Temp actually went down in traffic and up when i got going, thought it would be the other way round!
                          Matt, not fitted it yet but the holes are ready, picked up the vent tops today
                          and hopefully fitted this weekend,
                          Charlie, yeah it should keep the ice off, we'll all prob suffer with freezing engines
                          Joker, HaHa the buses we made went to london mostly
                          dont worry these vents were old stock left over from UVG days, got em out the skip, Ian
                          Attached Files
                          Too young to die and too old to give a toss

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            are you going to keep them polished when they fitted?
                            it's in me shed, mate.

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              They look bl**dy gorgeous. (Damn, wiping drool off keyboard again).

                              Comment

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