Hey Guys, I'm Reviving an old thread here. I have an older style fan and
was curious what the best way to add an extra ground is. Can I just attach
the wire to the body of the fan with a carefully placed screw? If not what
would be the best way to add an extra ground wire. My fan hasn't worked in
a minute I confirmed that the motor was good by jumpering it. Fan was
intermittent for a while then totally died.

On Thu, Jan 4, 2018 at 5:34 PM vw_van_fan_Mark <madvws@cox.net> wrote:

> Yes, the failed rad fan ground connection has become pretty common
> lately and often becomes intermittent first. I often add a dedicated
> local ground wire but I drill a hole in the chassis nearby so anyone
> working on the rad fan/wiring in the future can plainly see the added
> ground point.
>
> You can find the big fan and resistor in the wiring diagrams for the A/C
> system since it is only 86+ vans with factory A/C that got it. (All
> Syncros got it but unless they had A/C they used a simpler wiring
> diagram on page 97.200)
>
> Mark
>
> gary hradek wrote:
> > There is a lot of information on the vanagon fan motorsystem.    Ken at
> Vanagain and Go Westyhave some good postings to trouble shoot as well as
> the archives.   I would like to try to fill in some of theblank space in
> the trouble shooting area.
> >
> >     I have 87 westywith AC that is very much like the 86 westy, the fan
> motor system on the olderand newer vanagon are only slightly different.  I
> am not sure why but the Bentley manual does not show the resistor inthe
> electronic diagram.
> >
> >    My low speed fanwas not going on.    Following Ken atVanagain
> protocol I jumpered the sensor and nothing happened.   Ken does not
> indicate what to do in thissituation.   I should add that the fandid not
> come on when I turned on the AC.  Baffled, I wasted a lot of time looking
> at the wrong things.   A situation like this you should look againat the 30
> amp fuse and check that fuse time to time as you trouble shoot.   At this
> point you should drop the spare tireand use an external power source to
> confirm that the motor itself is notbad.   It is unlikely to be bad.
> When I looked at the motor what I saw werethree wires.   The medium size
> groundbrown wire, the medium size red low speed wire and the massive red
> high speedwire.   What were the Germans smokingwhen they made the ground
> wire smaller than the power wire?   To confirm the ground wire problem I
> pulledthe resistor connector behind the headlight and applied 12 volts to
> the mediumred wire that goes to the fan motor with Ken’s jumper protocol
> and confirmed that the fan motor did not comeon.   I then jumpered the
> brown groundterminal to various locations near the fan motor with (Ken’s
> protocol jumpersetup) and the red wire from the resistor energized and
> found a good ground andthe fan came on.   My final location fora new 12
> gauge ground wire was the horn bracket attachment to the frame.   The newer
> style fan motors have a screwattachment for the wires.   Not sure whatis
> the best way to add the ground wire for the older style clip arrangement.
> >
> >    Looking back at thelast summer I can recall that I must have had an
> intermittent ground problembefore the acute failure.   There weretimes when
> the temperature gauge read higher than it usual.   I would suggest any one
> who has not added asecond ground wire consider doing this the next time
> they go to check theirspare.   It is not something you want tomess with on
> the road on the hottest day of the year.
> >
> >
> >
>