My fiat doesn't need a Radiator Fan

[GOPAPA]

Call me dumb ,,or give me a brake and say that a lot of people would of missed what I must of missed.. LOL

My yongest son is up from LA visiting and I told him lets take the Fiat out for a drive and let him drive it . He is teaching his mother all about the blue chip right now or I would be visiting instead of chatting on the forum ,,but ,,,so here I am sharing my experince of a none operating cooling fan that my fiat didn't need today..

Now if I had any other of my cars or trucks with a cooling fan that didn't work I would of said no way am I taking it out and go 8 miles up a long hill and down another into town ,,,and back again .. well ,, I noticed the other day that the fan did not work and when I put a fuse in ,,it just blew,, so I hooked the fan up direct and it ran so that told me that the thermo switch was no good .But I also noticed that the car did not over heat sitting at an idle and it only rose 5 degrees up to 190..

So that told me that It must of not ever worked since I bought it back in the end of July,,, and I never would of noticed it if not for how you adjust the idle and you are supposed to heat it up to do this by letting the fan come on once and go off and come on again..this is supposed to be the right temperature to set the idle.

Then I noticed the fan never came on and so I ordered one off the internet from Vicks and it will be here this Weds.

So today we traveled the 8 miles to town up the hill and down the hill and stopped and again the guage only rose 5 degrees .. (It's about 78 degrees for temp out today so it might of went higher is if was hotter out ).. Came home ,,shut it off,,and again it rose to 190 .

I will put the new switch in but I learned something that I might not of believed unless I wittnessed it in person ,, so I ask you all ,,have you ever noticed this about your Fiats before? papa

[mdrburchette]

It takes mine quite some time to heat up at idle enough for the fan to come on. It hardly ever comes on unless after I'm dogging it on the track or am stuck in traffic in 90+ degree weather.

[mbouse]

two spiders here.

one an '80 and no matter what i do, or don't, i cannot get the fan to come on "automatically". i've tried three, no four different in-rad fan thermo switches. i've even changed fan motors (for a different reason). in the past three months, i have had three different radiators in the car due to another problem... which means that the contacts for the fan connections have been put on and off quite a bit...they certainly are clean now! The only way i can get this car to run a fan, is when i add a manual switch. and, quite honestly, watching either the stock thermometer in the dash, or the retro 1974 replacement thermometer I do not see much of a difference in temp after running the fan for 10-15 minutes.

the other is a 1978, and to my knowledge the fan, radiator, thermometer, and rad fan switch are all stock...have no reason to believe otherwise. just as one would suspect... this fan runs just fine, rarely coming on during normal operations, and only occasionally coming on during long periods of idle - like when i do a tune up, or tinker with the carburetor. yes, frequently the fan will come on 35-40 seconds after i have shut the engine off during those tune-up projects.

190°F is a great operating temperature. i don't generally get concerned until the needle peaks beyond the "0" of 190.

did anyone notice the temp while at FFO? i can attest that the drive home was one hot one, until the rain storm. never saw my thermometer read above 195ish. never hada issue either. at the same time, i would never advocate ripping the fan out permanently.