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SPAL fan

AzPete

Well-Known Member
Since getting this '66, there has been a cooling issue. First of all it was a old, worn out SPAL fan. No problem....I ordered and received a new one from FlowKooler. for a super price. Then the new fan would cause the rely to melt. No fuse or circuit breaker popping, just the relay gets hot and the pin actually moved in the plastic and shut the fan off. This would happen in 200 miles. The car had Painless wiring for the fan relay so I called Painless. Their fix was go to a 70 amp relay...........reasoning was the start up power draw of 88 amps from the fan. I continued to question them and why they sell the 40 amp for the fan if they say it needs a 70 amp. No answer for that other than the fan must be bad. They say they sell a lot of these and have no complaints.

Called SPAL and they had two techs on the line and could only suggest re-wiring with their harness as they know it works. They felt maybe the Painless was to light weight, especially for the upgraded fan they put out. After more discussion, they gave me a return authorization for the fan, even though I bought it thru FlowKooler. They wanted to check things out for sure plus I sent them the second bad relay. They got the fan and ran it on the bench. Start up was dead on and it draws 17 amps for normal running. All is good.

I talked with them as to why I had these problems and all they could see is a Painless wiring problem. (I hate to buy another harness but.....) The tech says he will include a new relay for me to plug into my harness. I said great and we hung up. Got the fan back today. Included is a complete, new SPAL wiring harness, relay, and fuse setup. That is a $42.00+ item for no cost........

Now, the difference in the two harnesses is night and day. The SPAL system uses much heavier wire all the way around. They also use a fuse vs a circuit breaker. The SPAL techs do not like the circuit breakers on their fans.

So, tomorrow sees me re-wiring the fan system and installing the fan again. I also found the lower hose sucking closed a bit yesterday so I flushed the system today and am installing all new hoses and coolant, and cap. The thermostat John installed has always been right on at 180 so I am keeping it.
 
Wow can't beat that for customer service!! I'm wondering where Painless got the 88A startup value? No way in hell does a SPAL fan draw that much at the beginning. The huge Taurus fan of mine would struggle to pull that much on high.
 
I've been running my Spal fan with their PWM controller for years. Works great, never had a problem.

We've sold there stuff for years also, whenever we have questions their tech support is great. You get what you pay for!
 
The start up draw information came from SPAL themselves. It is rated that at the 200 milli sec. time from start.

Never have cared for painless BUT I did not pay for this new harness.....lol. Also, this car came equipped with the painless from the PO.
 
I stand corrected, although startup amps of 5x rated amps is pretty high. Glad you got the issue figured out. What amp relays came with the SPAL harness?

I'm excited that I finally received my DCControl PWM fan controller. Now to find time to install the darn thing!
 
30 amp fuse, 40 amp relay.....works great sitting in the yard.

Did a test drive this am. The 30 amp fuse didn't make it (about 5 start ups is all) but a 40 amp seems to be making it fine. The driving temps are at 190 in stop and go traffic. I let it idle at the house and after 7 min. with the air on, in neutral, temp remained under 200. Outside temps are low 90's. Looks like it should be ok.
 
Buening, electric motors look like a dead short on start up, hence the high inrush currents. If you were to look at the inrush current with an amp probe connected to an o'scope, you'd probably see hundreds of amps for a few milliseconds.

I have the spal kit (altho mine is an old on/off model, not the fancy dance pulse width modulated kind (the old styles are a few grams lighter).......... and mine runs most excellent also..
 
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