Electric Cooling Fan in '87 Spider Veloce

[AlfaNeely@domain.elided]

    The air conditioned L Jetronic Alfa spiders had an electric fan in front of the condenser and an engine driven fan on the water pump.  The sensor that turns the auxiliary fan on is a little button looking thingie (technical term, sorry Fred) that screws onto the fan shroud.
    I have not owned an 87 for a couple of years, but I thought the fan shut off with the ignition switch.  I know the fans on our current 91 Spiders shut off with the ignition.  Perhaps someone rewired your spider - or maybe the two 87 spiders I had were both rewired!  Or maybe I have just forgotten any run on of the fan.
    On my 84 Spider race car, I removed the air conditioning condenser and remounted the air conditioning electric fan closer to the radiator.  I wired it direct so I can turn it on during a race as required.  I also run it afterward in the pits to cool things down.  I have removed the stock water pump mounted fan.

Ciao,
Russ Neely
Oklahoma City


In a message dated Mon, 05 Aug 2002 16:30:28 +0000, owner-alfa-digest@domain.elided writes:

> Date: Mon, 05 Aug 2002 08:16:56 -0700
> From: John Cecil <jcecil@domain.elided>
> Subject: Electric Cooling Fan in '87 Spider Veloce
> 
> Hello all-
> I recently bought an '87 Spider Veloce located in Arlington, VA and drove it
> back to California - about 3,400 miles. I had no real problems; got 29-35
> mpg and used 1 qt. of oil. On incident has me a little stumped. When I
> arrived in Needles, CA where the ambient temp. was 115 deg., I shut down the
> engine and noticed that an auxiliary cooling fan located on the front of the
> radiator and AC condenser was running. It continued to run and never would
> shut off even as the coolant temperature had gone well below 175. I finally
> disconnected the battery and let the car cool down overnight; the problem
> did not reoccur. Incidently, the car never indicated a hint of overheating.
> Even in Needles, with AC on, the coolant temp. didn't exceed around 190 deg.
> I was unaware that Alfas used an electric fan for back-up cooling and it is
> not mentioned in the owners manual. It certainly looks like a factory
> installation and not an aftermarket item. Any ideas on the reason for the
> fan 's refusal to turn off and where is the sensor that it apparently uses
> to determine temperature? Maybe it uses a simple timer to 
> shut off.
> Inquiring minds need to know.
> Regards,
> - --John Cecil
> <jcecil@domain.elided>
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