Rad Fan Connector

[85Cabriolet]

Is the rad fan supposed to have a three prong connection or a two? The wires from the car indicates it's two prong but the fan has three on it, hence why it doesn't work

[CalAltaDubber]

Ryan,

It should have two, I will show you on Sunday how to check it out.

[CalAltaDubber]

Ryan,

It should have two, I will show you on Sunday how to check it out.

Actually I take that back.

The Rad Fan has a two wire plug on cars without AC.

On cars with AC they have a three wire connector, and the thermal switch is different.

After poking around the project Cabby I discovered the diference and proceeded to refer to the Bently wiring diagrams.

As I said though, I will show you how to check it out tomorrow,

[85Cabriolet]

That would be the correct plug I have then, no A/C so it's two plug. BUT for some reason it has a three prong fan...

[Briano1234]

That would be the correct plug I have then, no A/C so it's two plug. BUT for some reason it has a three prong fan...

That is because the PO probably bought or grabbed the wrong one

Easy enough to wire around.

[tolusina]

The three pin fan is a two speed unit someone has switched in. The car is wired for a single speed fan. You can wire it for either speed, the low speed can barely be heard running from inside the car, the high speed sounds like it's trying to pull the car forward all by itself.
If you live in the desert or anywhere where you might get stuck sitting in traffic on 100° F days, use the high speed.

Mmm..... How about wiring the low speed to run off the radiator fan switch, wire a dash mounted switch for the high speed for extreme cooling needs.

[gull]

Just FYI, the high speed on the three-wire fan corresponds to the connections for the two-wire fan. (I came to this conclusion after squinting at the wiring diagrams in the Haynes manual for a while.) The connectors are physically the same, one is just missing one of the contacts.

I actually had the opposite problem, a one-speed, two-wire fan in a three-wire car. The result was nothing would happen until the engine got hot enough to reach the high-speed setpoint. I didn't want to replace the fan (it was almost new) so I jumpered the low and high speed contacts together so the one speed I had would run at the low setpoint.

[joshr65]

Well this is an old post but is weird because I had AC and have the 2 prong wire on my 85 vw cab. The new fan I got is 3 prong. Worried if I hook up to wrong 2 blades on fan I'll burnt it out.

[gull]

Mine's an '89, so it's possible A/C-equipped '85s only had one speed. Someone also may have done some parts swapping...stranger things have happened!

I don't think you can burn it out by hooking it up wrong. One terminal is ground, the other two are low and high speed. I don't remember which is which off hand, but you should be able to experiment and figure it out if it's not marked.

[Briano1234]

Well this is an old post but is weird because I had AC and have the 2 prong wire on my 85 vw cab. The new fan I got is 3 prong. Worried if I hook up to wrong 2 blades on fan I'll burnt it out.

The non-a/c cabbies, have a single speed fan (two wires)
The a/c cabbies have a 2 speed fan 3 wires.

The Radiator switch would have 2 prongs on it too.

Go to the wrecking yard find the right connector and hook it so that you use high speed.