Cooling fan interrupts for La Tortuga
Thanks for the good will Stilson, the Rolleristas appreciate it. We did off-skate agility and endurance work this evening. Chase Keester took part, although he would make a hippo in a tutu look really graceful :lol:.
Worked in a couple of sessions to hook up the relays for the cooling fans. Severed the power wires to each, and attached 18"/40cm pigtails to each end with heat shrink crimp connectors since they are in the splash area under the radiator. Put male & female push connectors on the upper ends to allow reconnection if relays fail, and used these to hook up to normally closed connections on the relay socket wires up on top of the radiaor area. Ran plastic wiring loom from relay for LH fan accross top of radiator to area of relay for RH fan. Ran second wiring loom from area of RH fan relay to recently-installed fuze panel area. Wiring includes hot wire from blue switch wyed to both fan relays, ground wires from each relay to closest upper radiator bracket bolt, and a wire from both relays' normally open connections to the previously installed reversing alarm. This took about an hour per relay for the connetions to the fans, plus an hour plus in the second session to connect everything to the switch wires and alarm. The second session was also dedicated to making neat wire runs, taping and wire tying of the whole setup.
Testing consisted of slamming the hood, jumping in the driver's seat and rushing to the Rolleristas practice about 7 miles away in McAllen, Texas, traffic. Turning on the blue switch did nothing at first, which concerned me. But tuurning on the air conditioning caused the very annoying reversing alarm to sound off until the compressor took a break. And then when I got to the soccer park where we work out, the radiator finally got hot enough to start the fans and the alarm, even with the air conditioning switched off. Since the electrical load from the alarm fools the computer, no warning lights have illuminated. This, folks, is complete success and a passing grade for El Pedorro's homework!
When offroading and attempting a water crossing, I suppose the right thing to do is to shut off the aircon and turn on my blue interrupt switch. The lighted switch tells me the fans are off; if the alarm sounds I will know that La Tortuga is warm enough to need the fans. If she overheats the warning light will illuminate. I believe all of that is enough information to allow me to operate safely.
El Pedorro is one tired but happy camper. I will work on my wiring diagrams, and fire up my laptop one of these evenings to see how I can scan them in to another post.
Goodnight, all.
Howdy again. The photos now exist, and will show up in Member Journal the evening of 24 september CDT USA.
27 Sep 2012
Howdy. Member Journal page is up after climbing up a fairly steep learning curve. So Far: hitch and winch photos, as well as shots of the run of #4 (3/8" or 8mm) cable from battery to 50A fuse panel to passenger footwell grommet to cabin to spare tire well to winch controller to grommet to winch. Cable will eventually serve a 2d battery on tranny hump, and an accessory fuse panel in spare tire compartment.
Next: photos of interruptor relays for cooling fans and ABS solenoid.
Planning Stage: Good Daylight Photo of entire rig on the beach, and a decent wiring diagram of an interrupter relay for any purpose.
El Pedorro
It's been raining a bit in the last few days, so although I didn't have the time to actually get in the backcountry I went to a local construction site that's accessible and had some fun in the mud!
