k2keith

I have an 96 Cherokee 4.0, it has ~270k miles and lots of 'personality' as I like to call it: it's also my daily driver when I can keep it working.

Recently it is overheating in the stop and go traffic I fight every day. The electric auxillary fan is not working, it is not something as simple as a fuse or relay, I believe it is a wiring or sensor issue. (As an aside the A/C has not worked for 5 years and is now no longer on the truck at all - I add this because some of the posts I see tie the auxillary fan and A/C as functioning somewhat together).

The auxillary fan only works if I wire it direct to the battery. I am considering wiring it direct and putting a switch under the dash to turn it on and off.

Will this work? Will it damage any other compontents? I know I risk killing the fan as it would not be fused. But if it kills the fan, it is only killing something that does not work anyway.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,
Keith

96_xj

since your relay works good for the fan use that relay to wire it up and grab a blade style inline fuse holder and wire it up that way!

you dont wanna wire it directly to the battery without a fuse. and you dont wanna run the main power thru the switch that is ALOT of amps and even the metal 3/4hp toggles are only rated to 30 amps...

plus if you dont run a fuse and the wire chaffs a little bit then you turn into this guy....

Russian

when i got my xj the PO took out the electric fan.. soiwentto the JY and got another one something didnt work when i hooked it up, being a relay, sensor, etc. i had this cheap 8 awg wire for a small small amplifier which had an inline fuse already that had 25 amps. i also had a metal toggle switch which was rated at 25. i hooked it all up and it hasnt let me down since. (knock on wood) i just used that power wire, ran it from the battery to the switch inside than from the switch to the fan. i took the fan neg. and grounded it

dyte2004

you can use a thermostic switch to control your fan google them it has a cappilary tube that goes into your top hose and you can set them to come on at what ever temp you wish you still need a relay but you dont need a switch in the cab and dont need to worry about turning it off

k2keith

I would love to run it through the fuses and relays properly. The problem is I changed them ALL out recently chasing several issues, it did not solve this problem. I identified slots in the under hood fuse box that had 12v with the key on and nothing with key off, wired to those slots and the fan does not work. I also tried wiring it to my headlights, still does not work. Only works if I wire it direct to the battery. I don't know why.

I worried that it might cause a fire.

Any idea why it would not work running thru the fuse box if I have 12v?

Keith

dyte2004

dont wire it through headlights that will cause fire use a seperate relay and a separate fuse

tntchitwood

I ran a hot wire straight from the battery to the fan, Then the ground wire runs to the switch and then is grounded on the other side of the switch. The wire from battery to fan is very short. The ground wire to the switch is the one routed to the interior, if it rubs on something or whatever the worst that will happen is the fan will come on. My amp wire from the battery has an in-line fuse from advanced, couple of bucks.