360 cooling fans not working

when i got it was ground the thermo switch by taking the plug conector off the thermo switch and jumping the green and the black wire.this makes both fans turn on. both fans stay on when i open the switch and the car stays cool between 180f and 208f.turn the ignition off and both turn of.if i turn the ac on the passengers blows stronger. I just by pass the stupid thermo switch.and dont have to worry about over heating and the drivers side fan turning on.
They both come on with the ignition is open and i can here them on.no more over heating in stop and go traffic in miami fl.

 

While this shade tree method will work as you described you will have reduced the life expectancy of the expensive fans tremendously since they are now on 100% of the time (incl highway driving). You do know that to replace the fans the front bumper must be removed. There are other ways of accomplishing the same results (Driver's side fan running) without jumpering the fan switch.

It is not the Thermo Switch that is 'stupid'. It is the control logic that F used. For example, my old Porsche uses 2 fans as well with the simple but effective Variable Speed Controller Flex-a-Lite 31163. Both fans run but at speeds depending on the coolant temperatures. Simple and effective.

Just saying!

 

How often are you going to use the ferrari.well i only use it probably once a month for not more than an hour if that..how long will the fans last me then.worse case scenario i replace them with better ones.not a big deal till then iam sure the fans will last another 5- 6 years if not more.your fan on the passenger side is constantly on any way at 180f..so why hasnt your passenger fan broke yet? And that one is on all the time and most of the time at a higher speed with the ac on.and how long have you had that right side fan running like that? The car stays between 180f-209f at a whopping 100 degrees hear in fl in stop and go traffic.the temp of the engine is at optimal,and for some of you guys that cant figure out why both of your fans are not turning on at all..after swaping your relays and checking fuses and burping and water levels, thermostat checks,and so on..theres one more fuse behind the drivers seat a 5amp fuse called the service fuse that supplys the ground to the relays to turn your relays on thus turning your fan on to the on ignition operation..so iam not worried about how long the fans stay on.nor how long you leave the lights on before the bulb burn out..iam just saying

 

And just for info you dont need to take the bumper off to relpace the fans.i took out my fans to clean my radiators cores for optimum cooling.they get pretty black and dirty after a while.
We are all on the same team.with these ferraris we all have to share are experiences.not that my ideas are all correct.but they are effective.you can make your own decisions.this is what works best for me and i have no issues.

 

I'm a 550 owner but just wanted to point out that running fans continuously is actually less detrimental to their lives, and the poorly designed electrical system in these cars than cycling them on/off every few minutes in hot weather. Every time a fan turns on, the motor will momentarily pull 2x to 3x its normal running amperage, and this puts quite a strain on the wiring, the relay, and the electrical connectors. And when the fan turns off, there is a spike of magnetic energy that gets dumped back into the system...... so these systems (and especially the ECU's) could benefit from some modern surge suppression.

The best overall solution for controlling the fans, as Fred pointed out, is a variable speed fan controller. And BTW, the Flex-a-Lite is not a "true" variable speed controller, as it's only variable between 60% and 100% of full speed, but it's the nearest to a true VSC unit that is available from a known/trusted manufacturer. SPAL had a "true" VSC for a time, but it suffered from reliability issues and it was taken off the market.

 

Thats why they have relays and fuses

 

sfuses
So when your fans are turning on they are pulling the amprage 3xmore ...they are already doing that anyway. I rather have a fuse blow or a rellay fail then my motor overheating..just saying.

 

Like he said less detrimental to your wireing sytem..look at it this way every time your home ac kicks on what happens to all the lights in your your home...they dim then goes to normal.well i dont want the surging on the electrical system all the time...jump the wire takes 5 min.and all your worries of over heating is gone..

 

This 550 guy said
I'm a 550 owner but just wanted to point out that running fans continuously is actually less detrimental to their lives, and the poorly designed electrical system in these cars than cycling them on/off every few minutes in hot weather. Every time a fan turns on, the motor will momentarily pull 2x to 3x it's normal running amperage, and this puts quite a strain on the wiring, the relay, and the electrical connectors. And when the fan turns off, there is a spike of magnetic energy that gets dumped back into the system...... so these systems (and especially the ECU's) could benefit from some surge suppression.


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Dude its your car, fix it how you want to.
For me, getting mine was a dream come through at age 57 so when it needed repairs I wasn't going to treat it like a cheby.
So if bypassing the switch works for you instead of finding the root cause, rock on.
I know, its just a car!

 

The root cause is a design flaw from ferrari..thats why there are so many cars with the same problem.
Just trying to help out others..

 

Pull the front wheels. Pull the front inner fender liner. Top inner corner of each rad is a hose. Remove it. Pour coolant into the expansion tank. Once coolant pours out of the the nipple at the top of the rad..re connect those hoses and tighten the clamps. Locate the thermostat housing. On top you will find a bleed screw. Loosen it, do not remove it. Let gravity force the coolant out of the bleed screw. Tighten..start the car..with full heat on.

Let it run for a bit, the crack the t-stat bleed screw again. Look for a nice stream of coolant. Tighten. Make sure the heater inntje car is bowing hot air. That's it.

 

Instead of doing all that I borrow a friend's Vacuum Extractor (5 gals) and connect it to the single vent hose that is connected to the top of each rad and to the head tank. I pull vacuum until I get about 1L of coolant while adding a little more than that to the head tank. I have never had a problem with heating. I will include a diagram for others to see what I mean.

 

For those folks playing along and wanting to bypass the Thermo Switch also, there is no need to remove the inner fender liner and jumper the rad switch. If you understand the relationship between switches and loads you then know that in most cased there are relays in between. Consequently, the switch simply sends a signal (whether its +12v or -12v) to the relay to energize the coil in the relay which then forwards the required voltage to the load (fans). In the case of the 360 the double contact switch sends a -12v or ground signal to the #85 terminals of the relays in the Frunk. So remove the relays (one for Pass and one for Driver's side fan) and connect a piece of wire between the #85 Terminals of the two relays and re-insert the relays. So when the Left Side (Pass) switch sees 197 degrees F and sends a signal to the Pass side relay to start that fan the same signal will also go to the Driver's side relay as well. So both fans will run at the first step temp of 197 degrees.

To return system to normal simply remove the jumper wire.

As a backup, if you suspect the double contact switch has failed and your car is about to overheat, simply connect a ground wire with an alligator clip from the trunk latch (right there) to the #85 terminal of the relay, re-insert the relay and the fan will run. You're simply doing what the switch would have done.




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Hi hessank, this is a great post. Can you explain for me how to put a jumper wire into 85 and then push the relay back in please. Wont the wire will be in the way of the relay spade connector?

 

Dale, about 3 years ago I was on vacation >500 miles away from home and still moving away (I was in Quebec City an heading to Atlantic Canada).
Car temp was rising with the AC on and I realized that the Driver's side Rad Fan was inoperative. I gave it a -12V (Ground) signal on the #85 PIN and it ran so I knew the relay was nfg).

But alas, I had a spare relay. Guess what, the brand new spare must have been doa. So I babied the car to Home Depot, bought what I needed and with that jumper both fans ran at the same time.

When the Driver's side fan ran the temps returned to normal but it was very noisy as if the fan bearings were on their way out. That was another problem all together and I later read that because it is hardly run if your car is running properly (the Pass side is good enough if you rarely use the AC. I think mine is one of those.
After I replaced the broken fan I kept the jumper wire so each fan takes up 50% duty. It's been like this since then.

Reversible in under 5 mins.

 

Do your headlights dim when both fans cut in at the same time?

Not sure what you mean by 50% duty. The jumper wire seems to be only on the coils (?)

 

When the Left fan comes on so does the Right side. When the first ground signal is sent to the relay it also transmits it to the secondary relay.

The logic of the Temp Switch is unchanged. Tested and proven.

 

Thanks Fred that is great!
I will certainly do that.
I am in Australia and have a right hand drive car. I was working on the drivers side fan with the switch and big relay on it and didn't really go to my passenger side.
I did this morning and the plug is burnt that goes onto the fan. Looks very ugly and the contact is difficult to get to go back into the fan connector.
Also when I put a ground to the 85 on the left relay socket the right relay clicked, but putting the earth onto the left relay 85 socket the relay next to it did not click.
Still the fans didn't run on ignition with the jumper in.
The drivers side (your passenger) fan, with the air con condenser does run thou if you just give it straight 12 volts so we know it works.
Does that help you work out what may be going wrong in here?

 

I also just checked the power cable to the passenger side fan ( left side of car) whilst the radiator is super hot and the temp reading is 100 and the voltage is only creeping up to 300 mv then back to zero. Creep back up over about 15 seconds then back to zero.
Crazy.

 

If both fans don't have any voltage, then you may have blown the maxi-fuse in the passenger footwell (near the battery)

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Sorry, don't know the orientation of the fuses on a RHD car.

 

Thanks Ian, but if I have power in at the relays under the bonnet then those maxi fuses must be ok?

 

Ah, yes, very likely, especially if you have 12 volts at both fan fuseholders in the luggage compartment.

I still haven't been able to piece together a diagram which makes a lot of sense. The WSM hookup charts say that the right fan plug should be supplied with battery power at all times (irrespective of the position of the key). That would quickly flatten the battery... unless the fan earth is switched.

Without a decent wiring diagram, you may have to keep throwing parts at the car until something fixes the problem.