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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!
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
disco now gone aswell
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