need help with dccontrol fan

[daddystang]

I swapped locations of the stock sender and mechanical sender. We let it idle for a while, and the mechanical guage responded faster than before I moved it. With the fan set to the lowest setting the temp went to about 158 and seemed to just stay there. The stock guage went up a little more than it did before the move, as expected.

So far so good, but it's raining so the real test will be tomorrow when I take it out for a spin, and then let it idle. I think it will be ok now, but we'll see tomorrow. I do feel good about it now though.

This has really been a collaboration of many knowledgeable people, and I can't thank you guys enough for all of your help. I will update tomorrow with hopefully good news. I hope this thread helps someone else in the future.

Thanks again.

 

[HISSIN50]

One thing that could use clarifying:
I think I earlier mentioned to not use a Tee fitting for temp gauges. The intent of that statement was that one would not want to use a tee in say the stock gauge sending unit location on the lower intake. This would lead to a cove of predominantly stagnant coolant in a Tee with two senders deadheaded. This is not good (see why below).

Jrichker's idea is very, very viable (AM has a gauge manifold for adding a trans temp gauge which works this very same way). JRichker's and AM's tee is merely a cut in a thoroughfare with a port for a sending unit. This works because the tip of the sending unit is succepted to the flow of coolant in real time. That's how it should be.
I actually had not considered JRichker's idea for a temp sender location but I like it.

I just wanted to clarify this in case someone reads these things at face value and wonders why I said to not use a Tee (in the context of multiple senders in the stock location) and JRichker says a tee is cool. There are qualifiers involved.

Daddystang: let us know how it goes. It sure sounds like you've gone over everything a time or 10. The gauge swap-around is something I'd have wanted to do even if the fan worked great. It's nice to have as much confidence in our (best) gauges as is possible.

Nutty - we knew it was just a quick lapse. I only do it about 10 times a day in here.

 

[daddystang]

Todays test drive seemed to go OK. The temperature outside was about 70 degrees, and I sat in a bit of traffic, and the mechanical guage never went above 178*. I'm thinking everything is good to go now, and the 90+ degree days coming up don't have me too worried. I'll throw another thread in on one of those days just to update. My wife took the car out, and said she really hit some traffic, but said the temp never went above 175. I can't thank you guys enough for you time and knowledge on this problem, you guys are awesome. I hope I can also be of help to someone like this in the future.

 

[HISSIN50]

Glad to hear it seems to be doing well.
We appreciate any updates you might have in the future (updates are too far and between on the forums, it seems. It's always nice to hear what a definitive solution was).

 

[jrichker]

Actually, one of the best places for a temp sensor or sender is the heater feed line that goes to the firewall and to the heater. Use a couple of Home Depot or hardware store fittings to make a tee to screw the sender into. Then sweat solder some stub pieces of copper pipe to connect to the hoses and you are done. It uses the same water circulation path as the ECT sensor, so it should be very accurate.

I forgot to mention that the temp sender or sensor should be in the feed side plumbing (same side as the ECT). If you put it in the return side, the car's heater will have dropped the temp quite a bit. Since I have bypassed the heater in my car, I didn't think of it the first time.

 

[RB92GT]

temperature sensor

Info on how I created a T for installing stock temperature sensor into heater hose:

Parts available at Lowes:
1 - Brass T fitting with three 1/2 inch female threaded ports
1 - 1/2 inch male to 3/8 inch female fitting (to screw sensor into)
2 - 1/2 inch male to 5/8 inch hose male fittings to screw into each end of T and then connect heater hose with hose clamps

Total cost about $10

I am not sure if the inner diameter of the location referred to above (heater core feed line, drivers side, larger hose) is 5/8, seems it may be a bit larger. I would think that placing the T in the heater hose return line would work as well, but as mentioned may read a little cooler if heater is on... then again, if heater is on, it must be cold out so shouldn't have overheating problems anyways.

 

[RB92GT]

Stock temp sender

Installed T described above by me and included a pic, kind of blurry, but you get the idea. It is installed in the heater return line, so may read falsely low, but easy to install where I did.

Only problem, at first the stock temp guage didn't work... realized that it needs to be grounded and in stock location, it bolts into lower intake which is grounded metal. Ran a scrap piece of wire from brass T to neg battery terminal and it works now. Will probably use a heater hose clamp to connect the wire to the brass T and then run it to a grounded bolt.

 

[Bill Byers]

HELP!

I just purchased and am installing a two speed dcc controller on my contour fan, I am in process of placement of the temp probe. After quite a bit of searches it seems the best placement is down low by the lower hose, however the instructions contradict this.....

"Temperature Sensor
Plug the temperature sensor into the two-pin connector of the controller. The temperature sensor should be mounted on the top- hose side of a cross flow radiator (tanks on the side) about half way from the top to the bottom of the radiator. On a down flow radiator (tanks on the top and bottom), the sensor should be mounted at the top of the radiator, about midline horizontally"

Did something change? Where are you guys mounting it? Also my probe has some sort of "Heat Shrink" on it, is this supposed to be removed? Sorry if this is a dumb question, kinda new at this...

 

[HISSIN50]

I just purchased and am installing a two speed dcc controller on my contour fan, I am in process of placement of the temp probe. After quite a bit of searches it seems the best placement is down low by the lower hose, however the instructions contradict this.....

"Temperature Sensor
Plug the temperature sensor into the two-pin connector of the controller. The temperature sensor should be mounted on the top- hose side of a cross flow radiator (tanks on the side) about half way from the top to the bottom of the radiator. On a down flow radiator (tanks on the top and bottom), the sensor should be mounted at the top of the radiator, about midline horizontally"

Did something change? Where are you guys mounting it? Also my probe has some sort of "Heat Shrink" on it, is this supposed to be removed? Sorry if this is a dumb question, kinda new at this...

On the new two-speed controllers, the probe is designed to be located in a different location than the PWM controllers. What you read in your directions is correct for the two speed units.