I'm starting to hate this car!

[rev_rock]

As some of you know, I recently had rebuilt heads put on my 3VZFE V6. After getting it back, it began to get hot again. It was suggested that the solenoid wire might be loose, or not connected, on the power steering pump (for the hydraulic fan). That is exactly what was wrong. That seemed to fix the problem. I've driven it around town with the a/c running and all seemed good.

Today, I drove it to Bakersfield, CA to get it smog checked. All went well until the trip home. It is a few thousand feet elevation change from Bakersfield to Tehachapi and, while coming up a steep grade with the a/c on, the car started getting hot. I pulled off and ran it at about 2000-2500 rpm in neutral, and it cooled back down to normal. It never got into the 'red zone' on the temp gauge, but it was climbing up there. I drove it the rest of the way home okay, but it just seems like the fan isn't turning fast enough to keep enough air flowing throught the radiator. I don't know whose stupid idea it was at Toyota to go with a hydraulic fan instead of electric, but I hope they were fired!

Anyone have any suggestions? Has anyone ever had trouble with their hydraulic fan? I'd really like to convert to a dual electric, but don't know how hard it would be to get rid of the hydraulic lines, or re-route them to bypass the radiator area. Any help is appreciated!!

[xtremeskier97]

eye8pussies has converted to aftermarket electric. Im kindof wanting to do the same on mine, mainly for piece of mind and to save space.

Eye8...if you post here, can you post pics of your conversion?

[new echo owner]

Originally Posted by rev_rock

Anyone have any suggestions? Has anyone ever had trouble with their hydraulic fan? I'd really like to convert to a dual electric, but don't know how hard it would be to get rid of the hydraulic lines, or re-route them to bypass the radiator area. Any help is appreciated!!

Did you reconnect the solenoid connector at the P/S pump for the fan?

N.E.O.

[Stillrunning]

I can't give you direct experience but can only relate some info from my Haynes Manual.

Fan speed should be about 1100rpm, but I don't know how you would check that. Normal fluid check of PS fluid and observe if there is any foaming in the reservoir at normal op. temperature. You could have a weak rad that is just having a hard time keeping up. If you know someone with the same system that operates ok you could compare their fan speed with yours. The solenoid in the system looks to be only an on/off valve, so if it is opening properly should allow enough flow to the fan motor to give the proper speed. Of course if there is too much wear on the fan motor then slippage would give less rpm as well as. If you go electric motor then capping off the hydraulic lines would just be a matter of looping some hose between connections of the motor. I doubt you need the PS fluid cooler when the cooling fan is non functional but leaving the cooler in line could present problems of over cooling the PS fluid to the PS pump and actuator - except that your in CA, so air temp is not really an issue.

[rev_rock]

You guys are fast! N.E.O., I did reconnect the solenoid wire. Before I did that, the fan didn't speed up at all. After connecting it, I turned the a/c on full blast and the fan started to roar. At that point, it seemed to be fixed. I could let is idle with the a/c on, and the temp gauge stayed at normal (just under halfway).

Today, I could hear the fan running, but after it got hot, it seemed that I could only hear it roaring in conjuction with the engine rpm. It's almost like there's not enought fluid pressure to keep the fan going faster at low rpm. The fluid level is fine and there's no foaming. I don't get it. But I sure don't like it. The car's only got 153,000 miles on it, which should be pretty young for a Toyota. The people I bought it from kept it in immaculate condition. The husband isn't mechanically inclined, but his brother is a mechanic, and kept the oil changed for him, etc., so it's been treated well it's whole life. It's just frustrating that a stupid idea like a hydraulic fan could be the cause of so much trouble!

[Eye8Pussies]

NEO- I think he said that they reconnected the solenoid


as for the electrical fan conversion, it's not too hard. the only problem that I ran into was making sure that I had the right fittings and proper high pressure clamps to re-route my ps lines so that it would flow correctly after I was done. I basically just removed all of the extra hoses that had to do with the hydraulic fan, including the cooler and then looped the hoses. I also unplugged the solenoid so that the pressure won't go up when I turn on the a/c, etc.

the most important part were the fittings and clamps only because when I used not so good clamps at first...the pressure was so high that the clamps wouldn't hold and the ps fluid would foam around the fittings and I'd end up with a couple liters of PS fluid on the ground.

The only problem was that I couldn't use the ect temp sensor as an on/off switch for the fan, so I ended up wiring up a button inside my cabin instead. It works for me- I turn on the fan when I'm in-town if I have my a/c on or its hot. If I'm on the highway, then i just turn the fan off to take an extra load off my electrical system. I may get an aftermarket coolant-temp sensor later so that I can run the fan at variable speeds and not even deal with the button, but considering that the kits cost more than what I paid for my fan, I'm a bit too cheap at the moment that, and winter's coming now anyway

[new echo owner]

Originally Posted by rev_rock

You guys are fast! N.E.O., I did reconnect the solenoid wire. Before I did that, the fan didn't speed up at all. After connecting it, I turned the a/c on full blast and the fan started to roar. At that point, it seemed to be fixed. I could let is idle with the a/c on, and the temp gauge stayed at normal (just under halfway).

My bad! Been a busy day, wasn't reading everything through before jumping in.

N.E.O.

[new echo owner]

Originally Posted by Eye8Pussies

The only problem was that I couldn't use the ect temp sensor as an on/off switch for the fan, so I ended up wiring up a button inside my cabin instead. It works for me- I turn on the fan when I'm in-town if I have my a/c on or its hot. If I'm on the highway, then i just turn the fan off to take an extra load off my electrical system. I may get an aftermarket coolant-temp sensor later so that I can run the fan at variable speeds and not even deal with the button, but considering that the kits cost more than what I paid for my fan, I'm a bit too cheap at the moment that, and winter's coming now anyway

What about using the feed to the solenoid as the switching feed? Can you replace the P/S pump with the later model pump without the hydraulic fan, so there will only be a single chamber pump, so you don't have to deal with the hydraulic lines to the fan?

N.E.O.

[rev_rock]

Originally Posted by new echo owner

What about using the feed to the solenoid as the switching feed? Can you replace the P/S pump with the later model pump without the hydraulic fan, so there will only be a single chamber pump, so you don't have to deal with the hydraulic lines to the fan?

N.E.O.

I was kind of thinking the same thing. I know that some of the Flex a Lite fans are variable speed and have connections for temp and a/c sensors. Seems like it would work.

[Eye8Pussies]

Originally Posted by new echo owner

What about using the feed to the solenoid as the switching feed? Can you replace the P/S pump with the later model pump without the hydraulic fan, so there will only be a single chamber pump, so you don't have to deal with the hydraulic lines to the fan?

N.E.O.

yeah, I actually thought about that but haven't gotten around to it. And from what I can gather, it should be an on/off switch. But at the moment, I'm fine using my own switch on a relay, since I don't really want the fan on when I'm on the highway anyway for a number of minor reasons. I had been under the impression that the ect was just a simple sensor that would ground when the coolant temp reached, but according to the shop manual, apparently that's not the case on this car- the etc sends a variable signal to the ecu and then the ecu decides when to activate the pump- so that's why I think the signal to the pump will most likely be an on/off switch...though again, it wouldn't be the first time where a simple on/off signal would have sufficed, toyota has turned into a variable signal

as for changing the pump, yup! that would be the perfect way to do the change over to the electric fan. you will also need a ps reservoir as well that's from the newer ps systems. But there will be two hard parts- one will be obvious one- that the ps pump is pretty much impossible when the engine is in the car (or, let's just say very very hard) to get to when the engine is in the car (yes yes, I should have swapped mine when I had my engine/tranny out again this summer, but I didn't want to spend the money on a p/s pump), you basically have about 2 inches of space between the ps pump and the engine bay, and you can't see what you're doing since it's out of sight from the fender. And the second part is that you will have to also replace one of the power steering hoses that go to the pump or the rack- not sure which. Because one of the hoses on the system with the hydraulic fan is a lot larger than the one with the electric fan. I found this out because I was trying to use a ps reservoir from an electric-ps-system, and one of my hoses was much too big for the one of the receiving spouts on the reservoir.

So I did whatever I needed to do to make my new fan work. And it does. Quite well in fact...it's a lot more powerful than my hydraulic fan and I also saved some weight and gained a lot more space to work with in the front of the engine bay.

[Eye8Pussies]

Originally Posted by rev_rock

I was kind of thinking the same thing. I know that some of the Flex a Lite fans are variable speed and have connections for temp and a/c sensors. Seems like it would work.

as for that idea, I don't think it will work together.

I don't think that the power steering signal is a variable voltage signal. But also, more so, after thinking about it some more, is that it will more than likely blow a fuse or burn out the ecu if you use that signal to actually power the fan.



the only real option it seems would be to buy an aftermarket fan controller that will vary the voltage to the fan motor according to what you set for the coolant temp controls.

[rev_rock]

Lately, I've been thinking about another option. What about trying an electric auxilliary pusher fan mounted to the a/c condenser? Looks like I could squeeze a 12" or 14" fan in there. Using either a radiator fin probe, or some sort of screw in probe to make the fan come on when the temp gets too high. I assume that enough air would get through the condenser and into the radiator to make a difference. Seems like the easiest way to go, as long as I could get it mounted. I don't like the through-the-fins mounts, since they tend to rub and cause leaks eventually.

What'cha think?

[new echo owner]

There some models of Toyota vehicles with pusher fans mounted in the front if you are thinking about that route, maybe brackets can be fabricated to mount them. You can use the same wire for the hydraulic fan to energize a relay to turn the fan on.

N.E.O.

[rev_rock]

Yeah, I think I can make it work. I thought about mounting it on the passenger side, so that I could use the same mounting holes as the condenser. I like your idea of using the solenoid wire as a switch too. That would save hassle of using a probe or sensor. I think I'll do it. Thanks for the input!