Sunbeam Alpine: Fitting Twin Electric Fans and Twin Relays
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- Опубліковано 1 лис 2024
- The original mechanical fan in an Alpine is barely adequate to cool the car on a hot day. With modern petrol burning hotter and roads more congested than ever, fitting electric fans is a good improvement. This video shows how to fit twin electric fans and twin relays (to give redundancy in the event of a unit failing) and details the wiring diagram to follow. We also test sucker and blower fans. If you don't want to fabricate mountings like this yourself, specialists like Alpine Innovations can sell you complete twin fan and relay kits that contain all that you need. The videos on the Sunbeam Alpine Channel show what we do to our own cars, there may be different or better ways of doing these jobs, the videos simply show how WE do them. We hope that you find them useful.
A very helpful video. When I get to the cooling part of the restoration I will be adding a twin electric fan system.
Peter, It is good that the video was of use to you.
I was able to place the two 10" Derale fans inside the engine bay by cutting away a few inches of the protecting tines surrounding the blades. I am not sure if this is necessary for a stock radiator; mine is aftermarket aluminum and about 1/2" thicker than stock. I must confess that I prefer the look of a clean radiator in the front of the car over the fans. I live in Arizona, where temperatures regularly exceed 100F. My car now runs consistently at 100C, except in the hottest temps, when it will reach 115C. My fans are setup with thermostat activation and a manual override. The fan thermostat resides in that large hole on the port face of the head that is typically plugged with a large bolt. I blocked off the oil cooler pass thru on one side and on the other, I blocked it off by fabricating and installing a cold air intake box, similar to your setup, for the Weber 36/36 I installed. Not sure how much HP is gained by the cold air intake and removal of stock fan, but the car feels peppier.
That sounds like a great set up that will keep the car running cool all the time. US made fans (like British or German ones) will be higher quality than the ones in this video but probably cost a lot more. I agree with a clean look on the radiator being preferable but everything in life is a compromise and we decided that the benefits of the twin fans pushing back outweighed the benefit of the cleaner look. In terms of radiator coverage the area of the radiator opening is approximately 228 square inches. Each 10" fan covers 79 square inches so around 70% of the radiator is being cooled directly behind the fans, with one fan it is 34% so it is quite a significant increase and a good percentage of the radiator is getting cooled by a 60mph breeze.
@@TheSunbeamAlpineChannel One thing to bear in mind with these twin electric fan setups is if you are running these on an earlier Series car than the 5 then you'll need to fit a dynator or alternator to keep the battery charged. The generator or dynamo is totally incapable of keeping the battery charged up. In heavy traffic you will get a flat battery in a very short time otherwise.
@@eddiezetlein6582 Eddie, totally agree, it is always a good idea to have some spare capacity in your electrical system.
was blower preferred to sucker purely because of space restriction behind the radiator for a twin fan setup?
Yes it stands alone from the radiator in the nose of the car. When running it moves a LOT of air.
Yes I need this. My all original '67 Alpine is always threatening to overheat if I have to wait through a few lights in a row using 89octane non ethanol. I turn the engine off sometimes when i catch a red light. It's my biggest issue with the car.
Hopefully this will help you. Twin fans cool the radiator quickly. You may have other underlying problems though, such as silt in the block or radiator.
Are they 7” fans that you installed?
They are 80w fans. I THINK these are 9” I will try and measure them in position and confirm.
I have checked the receipts and they are both slim line 10" fans.