Hello everyone,

I'm new here, just purchased my second project xj, 1989 4 door 4.0 inline 4x4, i was stoked to pick her up, low mileage, interior mint, maintained its whole life, 900 bucks! As I'm sure most of you know, the stock 89 cherokees come with the lovely closed radiator system, where the pressure bottle acts as a radiator cap. I did the radiator swap on it, to an open system, and now the electric fan doesnt work!! I ran the fan straight to the battery, works fine, and then checked the power connector to the fan with a test light, nothing. The only thing with this jeep that I was told was it had an overheating problem, turned out to be an air bubble, but instead of originally fixing this, they routed the fan wires so that it would be constantly on, instead of being temp regualted. So im not sure exactly where the wires would be run to be doing this...If anyone has had this problem, or maybe someone has rerouted their wires as well, please let me know of something I could try. I'm not sure if the fan is connected to some kind of fuse, but I checked as much of the wiring as i could, and i checked all my fuses. Thanks!!

 

i got my secondary fan on a toggle switch inside the cab that away if im creeping along i nice and cool. but im running dual electrics at the moment also.

 

im not too familiar with wiring, ive got a spare switch, plenty of wire, fusable links etc, could you explain how you set it up? thanks i appreciate it!

 

you have to find out which wire on the fan makes it pull air and not push air then that will be your hot wire. Your other will just run to a ground i put mine right on top of the radiator. then with your hot wire run it in to the cab find where you want to mount your switch on the dash etc. then all you have to do is find where you want your power source to come from ( fuse block has a open spot). run a hot wire from there back to your switch. Last thing is hooking up the switch, hook up the hot wire you just ran to one side and then the power wire to your fan ( the one threw the firewall ) to the other side of your switch and there you have it.
To find out which wire on you fan needs power to pull just use a jumper to the battery and ground the other wire out.

 

before you go and screw up the wiring you should look into the temp sensor on the truck. because thats what causes the fan to go on. temp read by the computer and then turns the fans on. It has 2 wire leads on top of the t-stat housing. 17 dollar fix at a parts store

 

he is running the old renix system where the fan switch is in the side of the radiator not the top of the t-stat housing. and he said he changed the radiator out so more than likely he does not have the hole on the drive side of the radiator.

 

hey gusj you gonna let us know what you decided to you?

 

I was wodering if that heat switch in the radiater is changable. I have the same problem! The fan runs if hot wired and when the air is on but not when it climbs near the red line???

 

Put it on a toggle switch .That way your in control of when it comes on.

 

I thought about that a while back and then read it in here. just didn't know if the RENIX had other things controled from that swich, as in injectors and stuff from the ECU

 

Welcome to the forum, Where's the pics???

 

hey guys,


sorry it took so long to get back to you, this jeep has been a project and a half lol. Still have yet to figure out what's causing the fan problem, I'm thinking it might be a bad relay??? The fan comes on when I switch on the ac, but turns off with the ac as well, even if the jeep is pushing the 210 mark. The guy I bought it from said he rewired the fan so it would always stay on, I guess it had an overheating problem and this was the first step he took, turns out there was a huge air bubble in the system!! So I'm not sure if the temp sensor would still come into play, seeing as though the fans not wired how it would of been stock. I haven't set up the switch yet, I'm still trying to get it to work without having to run a bunch of new wires, but it will, in the end be a solution, so thank you for explaining how to set it up. Thanks for all the replies, hope to figure this one out soon!!! .....

oh one more thing, I did the radiator swap on it, to the open system, along with a new heater valve, now my heater doesnt seem to be working....at least how it's supposed to. It only comes on when i switch over to ac, then turn the temp up, if i switch it to heat, it barely blows air, and its not warm, any solution or should i leave it alone before it completley goes out lol

 

oh sure thing, I'll post some pics tommorow, it's still stock, but clean for its age!!!!!

 

Atleast you have an electric fan... I dont... not sure if it came that way or if it was removed by the previous owner..

 

Just controls that aux. fan.