kiahn Posted September 1, 2009 Report Share Posted September 1, 2009 hi all, i have just finished my 4age transplant and bought a BIG thermofan, now there is heaps of info on 20v thermo switches but not any that i could find on 16v anyway, was wondering what temp i should turn the thermo fan on at? also where is best spot to mount thermo switch? i have an external thermostat with tem sender in it and also a random piece of pipe coming from bottom of raditator with temp sender dunno if i should use them with thermo fan setup cheers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ke70dave Posted September 1, 2009 Report Share Posted September 1, 2009 i remember asking a simliar thing a few years ago, when i was installing a temp controller circuit kit thing i bought from jaycar. my 4age runs at 82 degrees, under most all driving conditions (cruising thrashing, idling). the temp only goes up if I'm stopped for prolly longer than 5mins. so what i did was i set the thermo fan to come on at 90 degrees and turn off when it got to 85 degrees (mine had a hysteresis setting), and it only ever comes on if I'm stopped for longer than 5mins or if driving uber slow around a car park etc. the best thing to do is just experiment, you don't want the fan coming on all the time, or its just wearing the poor thing out unnecessarily. i just put the temp sensor in the top radiator pipe, seemed to work well enough! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kiahn Posted September 1, 2009 Author Report Share Posted September 1, 2009 in or on? i was thinking maybe attach it to the little pipe that joins the rad to the ext thermostat, atm its being used as a radiator hose support but ill see if it works alright there. cheers dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ke70dave Posted September 1, 2009 Report Share Posted September 1, 2009 well currently mine is just attached to the radiator right where the top pipe joins it. its a little dodgy. but it appears to give good enough readings to keep the water temperature in check. but i bought one of those little radiator joiner pipes, that have provision to put a sender. (picked it up for cheap from repco, like D1 brand or some crap) so what i did then was bought a copper plug that fits in the thread, and then I'm going to drill a small hole in the top of the plug, and then silicon the thermistor in there. its been on the "list of things to do" for a while now... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philbey Posted September 1, 2009 Report Share Posted September 1, 2009 I'd put it as close to the thermostat as you can. You can get units from VDO that have both the sender and a thermoswitch in the same unit, so if you run a VDO gauge for example, you should be able to run that straight into the thermo housing. Otherwise, put an adaptor in just after the thermostat. I wouldn't recommend putting it in the radiator outlet pipe. FYI runnning coolant in a pressurised circuit will boil at around the 126 degree mark. (that's with a stock K engine rad cap). Tectaloy website has more info on it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kiahn Posted September 1, 2009 Author Report Share Posted September 1, 2009 don't use silicon in high pressure applications like radiators :P doesnt always work the way you want. get some decent arildite glue (the stuff you mix yourself) ok so ive decided to mount the thermoswitch somewhere else as ive realise that it will always be getting a bad reading there as the water will be chilled from the radiator anyway. I'm thinking the rear of the radiator coated in silicon so that air can't distort the reading Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kiahn Posted September 1, 2009 Author Report Share Posted September 1, 2009 so the VDO gauge will tell the fan when to turn on? how much would oneof these miracle gauges cost me, dads got all VDO gauges on the boat and just fro a new tacho it was going to cost something like 400 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philbey Posted September 1, 2009 Report Share Posted September 1, 2009 Depending on who you get it through, a decent 52mm electric VDO temp gauge will cost you 40-50 bucks. Maybe less if you can get trade. The sender/switch is probably expensive though, I'm guessing another 40-50 bucks, but that's what a brand new thermoswitch would cost anyway. The gauge doesn't talk to the fan, the sensor just has more than one wire, one goes to the gauge one goes to the fan relay. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ke70dave Posted September 1, 2009 Report Share Posted September 1, 2009 don't use silicon in high pressure applications like radiators :Pdoesnt always work the way you want. get some decent arildite glue (the stuff you mix yourself) ok so ive decided to mount the thermoswitch somewhere else as ive realise that it will always be getting a bad reading there as the water will be chilled from the radiator anyway. I'm thinking the rear of the radiator coated in silicon so that air can't distort the reading yeah I'm not actually drilling a hole through the brass fitting. I'm meerly drilling into the fitting to create a cavity (that wont actually get wet) then putting the thermister into said cavity, and seeling it off with silicon. (remember the thermister is like 3mm long and 1mm wide) in heinsight i really shoudlnt have bothered with all this, and just used a temperature switch off a FWD car. but oh well, keeps me amused. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kiahn Posted September 2, 2009 Author Report Share Posted September 2, 2009 oh ok, sweet. well i was actually going to go with a $3 item from altronics which we use on the boat for similar reasons (cuts out the motor at 110 degrees) it will work temporarily while it goes through the pits and then ill work on improving by using the thermo switches/senders already in the piping is the senor in an ae82 external thermostat a temp sender or is it a thermo switch? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Medicine_Man Posted September 2, 2009 Report Share Posted September 2, 2009 is the senor in an ae82 external thermostat a temp sender or is it a thermo switch? thermo switch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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