Hey everyone, summer is here in Southern California and the temps are rising. I wanted to know what the normal operating temp for water and oil is for my 87 testarossa. I have seen my water temp rise to about 210 to 220 ish with both fans running. My oil temp hit close to 210 But it's fans weren't on. This seems pretty high to me and was making me nervous. Thoughts? Thank you everyone, stay cool.
I'm in LA/OC area too and have not seen anything over 195 on my water temp and nothing over 175 on my oil temp and this is driving it in upper 90's weather. I have yet to see my oil cooling fans switch on but my radiator fans kick in just a tad below 195.
Thank you, That is good to know. I didn't know if the fans were supposed to come on or not. I will check the current draw and see if the radiator fans are shot.
My radiator fans are starting to get loud, so I might change them out, since they're so old may be drawing more current to run. If you need to get some fans they are (Spal #30102054, 11" fans), available on amazon for around $100. 220 is too hot, your fans are not working or not switching on.
Ok perfect. Yea it would probably be best to switch them out. I'll look into that. Thanks for the help. I won't drive the car until I have this sorted out.
Does anyone have any information on radiator replacement for these cars? Also what is the temperature that should turn on the oil cooler fans?
Oil fans kick on just at or a bit past 210. I never had my fans kick on. The car is very efficient. 16 quarts of oil and the fact that air cools the oil radiators I think you gotta be in some extreme conditions for them to turn on. Check sensor on radiator that sends signal to fans. If someone changed it then maybe that's why they kick on when a bit hotter. Agree the older the components get the more draw they require. Fuse box upgrade is a must. SPAL fans is a good idea if you really need them. Take a step back and breathe before you start changing components. Cooling fans for radiator kick on at 195 and should not really kick on after 195. I've seen fans kick on and then temp slightly rise past 195. And I mean slightly then go down to when fans kick off. In winter or colder months it will take forever for oil temp to rise and coolant temp will be so cool that fans come on sparingly. Usually at a red light or traffic but then once in motion the air works wonders. Hope this info helps. R
The TR WSM indicates that the oil fans come on when the oil thermoswitch mounted in the side of the oil radiator closes at 90 +/- 4 deg C and stay on until the oil thermoswitch cools down and opens at a temp of 80 +/- 3 deg C (although the oil temperature gauge in the dash uses a thermister mounted in the bottom of the oil tank for measuring the oil temperature). If fuse #8 is OK, remove the oil fan relay, I, and use a jumper wire to connect the 30 terminal in the relay socket to the 87 terminal: Image Unavailable, Please Login If the oil fans run (and they should) = most likely a bad oil thermoswitch or a bad relay If the oil fans don't run = most likely burned white y connector connection or both oil fans are bad (or some other electrical foo) With all that said, I'm surprised the water temp is going so high (even if the oil fans aren't working if just street driving) -- so you might have something going wrong there too...Good Hunting!
Thank you Robbie and Steve, I did jump the relay yesterday when I was messing around with the car and the oil fans did turn on. So I will check the relays and the thermoswitch. To give a little bit of background as to how the car got so hot, I had just gotten off of the freeway and was in traffic. It was 85ish degrees out and I was just standing still. The car was fine on the freeway but once I stopped then the water and oil temps rose. The two water fans do turn on, I am unsure if they are running at full speed. I did have the car heat up again, I was driving around windy roads going about 30 mph and the temps kept rising. I would love if the oil fans would come on. I have been thinking about adding a separate relay with switch so that I can manually turn all fans on full. To get to the water temp switch, do I remove the left fiberglass wheel well and find the radiators in there?
Remove the left wheel well panel and you'll see it at the bottom of radiator. Here's a pic of it when I had to take out my radiator to replace a cracked upper pipe. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Awesome, that is a lot easier than I thought it would be. I was thinking that the oil tank and other stuff has to be removed. Maybe i'll check it tomorrow after work. Thank you for all of the help everyone, this is why I love forums like these. I will post updates as I go.
Not following why you would be going after the water fan thermoswitch (when you report that those are running) and not the oil fan thermoswitch? Are the water fans not working too?
I want to check everything. The oil fan switch I believe is easy to locate from the top, or would I go in through the wheel well as well? My concern with the water fans is that they aren't too loud, so I don't know if they are coming on at full speed. So I will be checking every component. Who knows, maybe a plastic bag is blocking a radiator.
As a reference point on a completely stock system including the fuse panel my car is in Dubai where the current temps have been just above 50 deg C lately. The car was out last weekend and outside temps were around 48 deg C. The oil fans come in around 93 deg C. The water temp is always stable at 90 deg C in traffic. Drops off to just about 85 deg C once I get moving even in the hot days. I'm running a mix of approx 75% water, 20% coolant and 5% redline water wetter.
Thank you N17RO. That is a very good data point. So I took off wheels and inner wheel liners and found that the electrical connectors are completely cracked and broken. The positives and negatives were almost touching. I will investigate more tomorrow. Hooking 12v to them has them run quitely. I will see if I can get the amperage from them, my Fluke is only rated for 10A so I will need something better. Stay tuned. I also found the oil fan temp switch and have to say that it is in a terrible spot.
the oil temperature switch is easy to reach, problem is sometimes to loosen it. best would be from under the car
Interesting, Ive never thought of listening or visually checking my oil fans........because the oil temp is never up to the point of concern. Next time im down there, ill put some 12v on the fan to conform function.
Well I don't have any major findings. I took of the wheels and inner fender liners and found that the electrical connectors were gone and it was just straight wires. So I cleaned up the bare wires, plugged them in and wrapped everything in electrical tape until I get new connectors. I tested the water fan switch and it worked fine, this wasn't my main concern. I jumped the oil fan switch and the fans kicked on. So it was probably a broken switch or corrosion on the contacts. I cleaned all of the contacts and plugged the oil switch wires back in. While I had the fender liners out I decided to clean them up, 29 years of grease and road dirt had built up on them. I degreased them, scrubbed them with a wire brush, dremil with a wire wheel and a paint scrapper. Took about 2 hours to clean them up and paint them. I chose glossy black for the back side that isn't seen, I figured that oil would wipe of easier, and matte/semigloss black for the wheel side. After all of this was done I went out for a long ride. My AC was blowing cool enough, the water temp went up to about 210 deg F max as seen in the picture. Oil temp went above 180-190 but the fans didn't kick on. It was a warm day and the car didn't try over heating. So maybe cleaning the contacts helped, or I wasn't stuck in traffic before. I will see if I can get a new oil thermal switch and find a good time to dump oil on the driveway.
When does your radiator fans kick on? Do they go on at 195 but your temp continues to rise to 210? Also when was the last time you had the coolant changed and was it bled properly?
Last major was performed in September 2015, I'm assuming that it was bled correctly. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
A needle width over the 195 mark seems quasi-reasonable to me (especially if that's with the oil fans not working). One thing that can make it seem worse is that, if you turn on the headlights, the gauge might read another needle width or two higher (so that's something to remember when driving at night).
These are the after pictures. I will see if I can have the hot temp pics. So the oil and water temp in those pictures are reasonable? I wish that it had more temperature gradients marked on the gauge.
Really. I never observed that and I drove a ton at night. The coolant temp does look a bit off. I mean a smidge. If the fans kick on at that mark and then works its way down then your ok. I would not like to see that needle exceed. Then something is off. Meaning if that needle hits that mark and fans kick on and does not get any hotter I would not be concerned. Oil temp. I never got oil temp fans to kick on. Oil temp never got to 210. Close but never. I used Royal Purple. R
Depending on one's geographic location, the maximum temp shown on the gauge (especially if the coachwork is in motion) can be about the same because it's just colder at night (not here in TX ), but this effect has been reported by many on many F models (a search on "needle width" should get you a lot of prior threads). It often goes unnoticed because when one turns the lights "off" at night with the engine still running, it's dark and you can't see the gauges tick down a little, and turning "on" the lights at cold start up, the gauges are pegged at minimum. Turning "on" the lights during warm-running when there is still enough ambient light to see the gauges in the before condition is the only time that the slight needle motion to a slightly higher position can be observed.
