Notes on Taurus fan intall...

'95 XJ

Fan clutch was shot, so it was decision time - replace fan clutch or finally upgrade to electric fan. Decided to upgrade. Live in AZ - need super cooling in summer. Thanks to GoJeep and members for inspiration and valuable info.

*Mechanical fan and shroud came out. Replaced fan studs with bolts.
*Trannie cooler (in front of A/C condenser) relocated to below radiator. Secured on both ends with rubber covered straps.
*Radiator and condenser moved about 1 inch forward (new holes drilled to relocate posts from bottom of radiator) Now had close to 5" for fan.
*New holes drilled for top radiator support
*Engaged in 'hack-a-shroud' on Taurus fan (trimmed about 1/2 inch to make the shroud thinner and to make it fit flush against radiator).
*Fitted fan vertically, similar to GoJeeps application. Retained factory A/C electric fan.
*Cut slots in Taurus shroud for radiator base tray and tray below it. Allows fan to snug up to radiator and helps support it.
*Installed metal straps with nylock nuts to hold fan to radiator. Two in top and two in bottom. Needed to add one strap to retain factory fan also, given that the radiator had been moved forward.
*Had to grind out a semicircle in radiator support shelf for dome of fan to clear.
*Had to grind out a semicircle in top radiator support shelf for factory A/C fan to clear.
*Wired up for manual operation for now. Two relays (40 amp and 70 amp from 12voltguy.com) and an on-off-on toggle switch. Want to add circuit for ECM control after my wheeling trip this weekend.

Results:

*Plenty of room for the Taurus fan, with shroud trimmed (have over 3/4 inch clearance). Mount is SOLID. Engine quieter. Better cooling at low rpms. Can sit all day long at idle with A/C on full blast in the sun over 100 degrees, and temp guage sits at thermostat opening.

*Took longer than I wanted (almost a weekend), but seems well worth it.

*Jury still out on whether stock alternator can handle the heavier load. Seems fine for now.

*Going to pull-a-part on half price day to pick up a backup fan. There are a million Taurus's in the lot.

Hope these notes help the next installer.

Glad it has worked for you so far. Dont see you being disappointed either.
Have you any shots of the installation?

Most definitely no regrets. I'm guessing that my old mechanical fan clutch has been kaput for some time...

No more of the temp guage creeping up at idle at stoplights. Low fan speed seems to take care of most city cooling needs.

Heading out on a fishing trip today. Have a long slow ascent (3-4 miles) on a hot, rocky desert hill on the way out. Will be another good test of cooling system. Will try to figure out how to post pics this weekend. Thanks, GoJeep for your website. I'm constantly on it!!

Rob,
You aren't in the Phx area by any chance are you? What pick n' pull did you find the fan at?

Thanks.

I am in the Phoenix area. I actually bought this one off of ebay, but there are a million Taurus's in the UPullit off of Chandler BLVD and 56th street in Chandler. Wednesdays are half price parts )

Gracias. I'm in the NW but it might be worth a trip.

id really like to see a picture of this install as well. not that go-jeeps writeup wasnt great, but im interested to see how this one turned out as well.

CommandoXJ96 said:

id really like to see a picture of this install as well. not that go-jeeps writeup wasnt great, but im interested to see how this one turned out as well.

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x2!!

llibobill said:

x2!!

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Me 3. I'm gonna do this mod in about a month or so. My fan shroud is cut to the round part that surrounds the blades so I will be making an aluminum shroud to mount the fan to. I also plan to use some solid state relays to control the fans. I am gonna try to keep one of my current 12" fans installed as sort of a backup. I will try to take lots of pics for a good writeup. I can't wait to do this mod cuz it gets hot here and my ride overheats if I push it really hard and don't stop to cool down. We can't have that. I also have taken a stock thermostat housing and epoxyed the outside and ground out the inside till there is a smooth 90* turn for the water to flow better. It's not installed yet as I have a smog check coming up and I will do a full tune up then.

yeah, it's on my short list as well. I may actually have an over-flowing problem though, I cool down when I stop revving the motor, idle is the best way for me to cool down. I get hot when I'm on the gas constantly for any amount of time. Might be over-flowing or simply a lean mixture. Gotta figure out which.

I have the high-flow thermostat housing and an aftermarket pump, although not the HESCO.

So the taurus fan is a two speed?If so how did you wire it to utilize the speed setting??

I'm also curious. You say you mounted your fans snug up against the radiator?? I would think there would be a possiblity for movement/fan into rad.......But I could be wrong.

What I'm really looking to know is this: Your Taurus fan has 3 wires on the plug, correct?? Which one does what?? I picked up a couple of fans from a friend's garage sale....but they didn't have pigtails. Believe it or not, those damn cars are kinda hard to find up here......

outlander said:

So the taurus fan is a two speed?If so how did you wire it to utilize the speed setting??

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I plan to wire mine like this: for low speed triggering I will run a small wire from the battery, through a 5 amp fuse, through the temp sensor to the trigger coil of the relay. Of course the other side of the trigger coil is grounded.
For high speed triggering I will run a small wire from the factory elec fan wiring in the engine compartment through a 5amp fuse to the trigger coil of a 75 amp relay. This will activate the high speed setting when the a/c comes on or when the temp reaches 220*.
The power wires will be fine, multistrand copper wires probably 12 gauge for the low speed and 8 gauge for the high speed. The power wires will run from the battery through fuses, 30 amp for low speed, 75 amp for high speed, to the load terminals of the relays then to the power wires of the fan.

If you want manual control of the fan you can wire a switch into the trigger circuit of the relays.
This is just a basic description of these circuits as there are many options one could choose to change how things work.

easiest way to find out what each wire does is too wire it directly to the battery for a second to find out which is common, and which activate each speed.
I will be trying to do this mod this weekend, here's hoping it goes aswell as Robs went.

So what years are these fans found on?

outlander said:

So what years are these fans found on?

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91-95 Tauruses, Cobras and several other models.

jeeperjohn said:

91-95 Tauruses, Cobras and several other models.

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In the tauruses, sables, and continentals make sure you get the fan from the 3.8L V6. The 3.0 uses a different single speed fan.

Last time I was at the pick n pull, I snagged 9 of these fans so there are plenty of them to be found.

MisterFubar said:

In the tauruses, sables, and continentals make sure you get the fan from the 3.8L V6. The 3.0 uses a different single speed fan.

Last time I was at the pick n pull, I snagged 9 of these fans so there are plenty of them to be found.

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Got some of them to sell? Mine has the shroud gone except the ring around the fan blades.

jeeperjohn said:

Got some of them to sell? Mine has the shroud gone except the ring around the fan blades.

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I only have 3 right now. One is a spare for my trail rig, one is going to end up in the XJ, and the other is getting installed on a buddies rig next weekend. I might be making a PnP run this weekend if I have time so I'll keep you in mind if I grab a few more.

my friend told me i need to put some sort of a relay to work with the ac and thermostat...because i cant have them on all the time...

how does this work??

any write up?