91 Caravan 3.3 liter fan relay
BlackDawg
07-26-2010, 03:29 PM
I have a 91 Dodge Caravan LE 3.3 liter V6 engine, The long story on what problems I have had with this car is as follows. The first thing that happened was I had a fusable ling burn out on the van, this I found was connected with the Cooling fan, the bearing went out on the fan causing the fan to draw excessive current burning out the fusible link. Then later while on a short trip back in April, the van over heated while driving slow in town, it blew the bottom rad hose, this was replaced and then later when ideling at my cabin it overheated again and blew a chunk out of the radiator. This somehow also seemed to have caused the alternator to go out, burning the positive terminal and the wire connecting it, in-two. I now had replaced the radiator and both hoses, also had repaired the fusible link, replaced the alternator and replaced the fan assembly. This seemed to work when first installed, but then later found the van was still overheating when ideling, and found the new fan was not working, got it replaced with a new one under warenty, now it still is overheating. Wed. morning on my way in to work, the faster I went the quicker it started to overheat, I pulled over and opened the hood, I found that the fan was running and while ideling the temp was staying at a reasonable level. I had to keep a close eye on the temp gauge the rest of the drive into work and finally after getting on the highway and increased my speed slowly it seem to have stablized and did not overheat the rest of the way in, but when stopped and ideling the temp does still get up into the hot range causing the check gauges lite to come on. I checked the fan moter again over the weekend and found it had burned out. Upon disassembling the fan moter I found that the solder connection for one of the brushes melted and the other brush had melted partly causing it to stick and not keep pressure against the armature. So whatever the problem is, it is definatly an electrical issue. It seems the fan is drawing too much current when coming on and it is burning up the fan moter. At this point I am suspecting possibly two problems, one is possibly the thermostat not opening up properly, the other problem would be that the relay is bad and somehow causing the fan to draw excessive power burning up the moter, or the voltage regulater itself is bad, which I was told the voltage regulator for this car is located in the PCM. I have searched this site and others extensivly for information about where to find the relay for this van, and have had several different locations and instructions for accessing it, but all information given was for newer year models than the van I have. I am needing information as to where to find the relay for this model and would also like to get a copy of the wiring diagram for the fan circuit. This van has two fans side by side the one on the passenger side is for the A/C and I seem to have no problems with that fan, it works, however due to problems with my van overheating I have not been using the A/C so not certain if it will work independently of the cooling fan.
I am concidering wiring a work around for the fan bypassing the PCM. Also if there is a problem with the voltage regulator, then I will want to do a work around for that as well and install an external regulator.
I am concidering wiring a work around for the fan bypassing the PCM. Also if there is a problem with the voltage regulator, then I will want to do a work around for that as well and install an external regulator.
BlackDawg
08-03-2010, 12:50 PM
Well I have finally resolved the issue. The problem with the fan working for a short time then burning up was due to a manufacturing defect in the after market fan assemblies. The plug connector on the new fans had the notched end reversed, when I hooked it up matching the notch on the fan assembly with the plug it was causing the fan to run in reverse. When driving down the highway with the fan in reverse it created drag on the moter causing it to burn up. The company I got the fan assemblies from has been notified of this problem and they have got the company to do a factory recall on the fan assemblies.
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