cooling fan

[WickedGnarly]

hey fellas,

Haven't posted much since I joined. There's so much info on this site there hasn't been much of a need too.

However, my fan fried. My xb12r's front cylinder might have quit because some awesome tech cracked the insulation around the spark plug. Anyways .... it was raining I was sitting in traffic and the fan started up and then there was some smoke and the fan doesn't work.

The ecm spy diagnostic nets me some sparking around the fan "area".

Anyways do I need the fan? I also have an xr650l and it is also air/oil cooled. Im thinking of just taking the fan off and saving the weight. Anyone else done this?

Also you guys rock this site is awesome I love my buell. We should get on tapatalk.

[christianmb]

You definitely need the fan. Others have contemplated taking it off also, and since the rear cylinder is insulated by the frame and other parts, it tends to heat up and retain its heat much more than the front cylinder. Also, if you are caught in any kind of traffic, you stand the chance of creating serious damage to the rear cylinder because of the heat built up. I would by no means suggest running without the fan.

[snrusnak]

If you ever stop moving for more than a couple minutes the bike will overheat without the fan. It barely stays cool enough with the fan. Not a good idea...

[sparky300]

With the money you'll save by not replacing the fan you can buy new rings for the rear cylinder this winter. :)

[WickedGnarly]

Lol I cetch your drift ill hop over too asb after I post this thanks!

[sparky300]

Don't forget to check Buellparts.net (http://www.buellparts.net/content-product_info/product_id-2827/firebolt_cooling_fan.html)

[WickedGnarly]

Thanks Sparky, very nice of you to link the fan directly. I dl'ed the manual on my phone a while ago. Replacing it looks like easy sauce. I could have fried a wire too now that I think about it. I swear this thing was in a flood or something.

Cheers,

[Rhino1]

Wicked, Although your fan is probably fires, i would still test it before ordering a new/replacement fan. Very easy to do, and you'll have to get in there anyway.

[jimijeans]

Yes the fan is a must on these bikes. Otherwise the Engines Rear Cylinder won't be able to lube and Cool down enough so the Rings and Pistons will eventually fail. The Electronics would also suffer damage due to how tight the Wiring is tucked into the Bike.
Each Model of Bike out on the Market is different in many ways.Honda ,Yamanas,Victory and many cruisers alike have a different Frame and Wider Heads angle so a little more air gets into areas that can't on the Tighter Buells and some other Aircooled Bikes out there.
The Fan on a Buell however also helps cool the Fuell in the frame. The 2/speed Fan motor isn't all that expensive even new, and pretty easy to replace. Buellister parts may have a used one if Buellers want to go that route. American SportBike.com will also be able to get that as well. Ride Safe.*Jimi

[levi]

I'm in the same boat here:

My fan powers up on the bench but blows fuses in the bike. I've had to ride the bike for a week with no fan on, and I want to sort this out asap.

Has anyone here "unpressed" the motor from the fan blade? There was a load of oil from a gasket failure that I cleaned. The rocker gaskets have been fixed but I can't clean the inside of the fan hub to get the last bit of grease.

I can't avoid riding the bike so the faster I get this sorted the better. Complicating this is the fact that I don't have the funds for a new fan. I can't seem to find the $30 and $40 used fans that were about last summer.



So the plan right now is to press the fan blade off of the motor and clean it properly. That feels like my only option at the moment.
I'm open to suggestions/assistance from you guys. Especially if you have a spare fan motor laying around.


Thx guys.

[jimijeans]

Oh man, hey levi, the fan is a sealed unit. you can try to remove it but the results might be a bad deal if it comes apart at those RPMs after reinstallation.Yeah if you keep on riding the bike the no fan can really burn up the rear cylinder.Start with your plug at the fan connection.
Use a meter OR use a 12/6/volts circuit tester for checking for 12/volts. Only one wire is hot on the fan connector. Possible sender temperature wire also but maybe not so/ start with the Fans area. You might need to check the wiring working your way back to the source to find the area that is gotten a possible short touching a metal area blowing that fuse. Please don't use a larger fuse that it is supposed to have in the Fuse Box.
A fire can start that way. Most likely the positive wire (red) on the fan connector on a stock Wiring harness has the problem . you have already gotten out the Fan so find the wiring and most likely it is close OR at the Fuse box area close by.
The Circuit tester is a great tool of being simple to use and test with. May even need to do a wiggle test of the wiring connectors in that area. Post up if you need more on that. and one of us will do our best to help you.Good Luck.*Jimi

[jimijeans]

Levi I forgot to mention that if oil is in the fan and it pulls too much voltage it will sometimes blow the fuse also. You may not have a short at all if it only blows the fuse when the fan is trying to respond to the Temperature Sender unit with too much heat and voltage is high from oil in the fans housing causing too much amps.
I figured you might have cleaned it before you Bench Tested the fan to be safe & might be lucky now it runs etc.. Try to check the Wiring with the Fan Removed.
The wiggle test & the connectors around first with only the Key on not running and if it blows then it may be a short. I myself would rather change the fan than chase down a short on my own Machines. For max voltage just unplug the Headlight!good luck. *Jimi

[levi]

Yeah the fan was cleaned as thoroughly as I could before I tested it. There's that space between the inside of the fan blade hub and the motor casing that's got unreachable oil in it still. I think this is providing too much resistance and smoking the ten amp fuse. The behavior(blowing the fuse right when the fan comes on) sort of supports this theory. I'm hoping to degrease the inside of the blade hub and relieve that drag that I suspect.

This brings me back to separating the blade from the motor. I remember a thread where someone had successfully done it, but I can't find it yet.

It makes me sick to be riding it around like this but I really have zero options.
The bike is a 2007 STT if anyone happens to run across a used fan.

Thanks Jimi for your time. I really appreciate it guy.

[sparky300]

Did you try a spray can of electrical contact cleaner in that "unreachable" area to remove the oil? You could also try brake parts cleaner or carb cleaner but I don't know what effect they would have on plastic or painted parts of the fan.

[Oldgit]

Aye I was thinking of some engine degreaser or something to remove the oil, which should evaporate over a short time.

[user_deleted]

with fan removed try any readily available cleaner like S100, cycle clean, any household general degreasing spray cleaner that is water soluable also works. spray the fan well, let it soak for a minute or 2 and spray off with hose. you won't hurt the fan as it gets wet as hell when you're riding in rain. that is why they are sealed.

[levi]

Yeah I hope that degreasing with the fan blade still attached works. I'll be looking for a fairly agressive solvent today at the store.

Here's to hoping this works.


Thanks for the words of advise guys.


Levi

[Oldgit]

As always, please update us with the results. Its good to keep a record for future searches :)

[sparky300]

Electrical contact cleaners are plastic safe and will remove grease and oil from impossibly small areas without submerging or immersing the part in solvent and/or water.

Fwiw, I have NEVER washed anything electrical with water, I don't care if it's unplugged and you let it it air-dry for two years before reinstalling it. They make products to clean electrical motors every day.

[snrusnak]

^ [up]

[levi]

Thanks guys

I'll be posting some pictures as well as posting my results.

[levi]

here's some pictures from the first fan removal. The oily garbage on the bike, then some cleaner pictures.

I'm working on liberating the fan again to deeply degrease it. More pictures to follow.


Oh snap.
http://www.buellxb.com/buell_images/5460_20120611023905_L.jpg

torn down.
http://www.buellxb.com/buell_images/5460_20120611023658_L.jpg

much cleaner.
http://www.buellxb.com/buell_images/5460_20120611023537_L.jpg

[levi]

Yesterday I took the fan back out of the bike. I used an electronics cleaner to clean between the fan hub and motor. The solvent was coming out of the hub dark for a while then it cleaned up to clear.

After the cleaning, the fan blade spins much more freely by hand and coasts to a stop instead of snapping to a stop. I bench tested it by connecting the fan to the battery with a test cable I made. The fan fires right up and ran like a champ. I let the fan run for three minutes and observed it's behavior.

At the fan plug (fan side) I tested resistance per the manual. I got a confusing reading though, and I hope someone can help me understand it;
The manual says to look for a value of more than one ohm for a good fan. My meter shows 2.5 then quickly goes to 0.5 ohms. I'm not sure which reading is correct.

Tonight I rode the bike to work and at the end of my ride, the fan came on for one second then blew another fuse. The problem is apparently unchanged by the cleaning.

Now I have to get my data together and try to figure this out. I need to know whether this is a short in the harness, or a fan that's not going to work anymore in the bike. (but works just fine with direct power)

I'm going to check the harness for a short with my meter. If there is a short, the fan is probably good. I'll check the entire path and ground connections.

I'm also going to monitor the amps drawn by the fan during a bench test. If the fan is drawing fourteen amps or something, I know it's not well. If it only draws six or seven amps, the short will look more likely.

Any thoughts at this juncture?

Thanks for helping me shoot this issue guys.


Levi

[Mark XB12r]

Levi, I think you have a good handle on things with your plan of checking the harness. Before you take an hour or so trouble shooting the harness do me a favor. The ohms on the fan readings make me think its iffy too. The jumper you made for bench testing, put a fuse inline on the jumper the same size as the one in the fuse box and bench test it. see if it blows that in the same time as when it blows on the bike. If it dosnt blow, then you know the prob is in the harness... if it does then it is most likely the fan... Good Luck

[levi]

Thanks Mark.

I wanted to put a fuse on my test leads as well. I wish I could bench test the fan in high speed mode though. I think the ECU gives it 14 volts or so to get that. Since I'm plugging it directly to the battery I'm getting 12-13 volts and thus low speed right?

[Mark XB12r]

Well if your talking about how it comes on when you turn off the bike... When it starts fast then goes to slow.... no it will not get more than whats in the batt at shut off, and its not going to be 14v. The batt wont have 14v in it at shut down.

Im not sure of the tools you have avalible, but this is what i would do. Hook up a fuse like I described, then jump it off my car batt with my car running. If no fuse burn with the amps/volts avalible from the car, then its in the bike harness not the fan.

This is what i would do... Remember the fan will not pull more than its designed to, unless its broke, hence the fuse for protection. And to me since it works fine when you jumped it in the past with out smoking the motor, or the wires that were in your hands my money is on your fault is in the bikes harness. Rember these three golden rules
1. Blown fuses = hot wire shorted to ground
2. something working with out demand = example- turn signal turn on with high beam switch means to power wires shorted togeather.
3. Something not working on demand = example- no brake light when brake applied, is and open circut on power or ground.

Hope this helps, good luck

[WickedGnarly]

This forum has become my favorite place on the internet.

I don't think this will help Levi out (sry man) but since I was the op I figured I'd let you all know that the wire harness deal that runs to the fan past the rear cylinder head fried on mine. I'm pretty sure I can find scrap at work that will be close enough to for me to run new wires.

For Levi: I'm not sure if you've used ecmspy, I dabbled for an afternoon and this is what led me to discover the bad wires. They spark when I run a fan diagnostic After you select the right options there are a bunch of diagnostics you can do. I don't actually know what the fan diagnostic does. because mines fubar. I assume of course that it tests low and high speeds. But perhaps if you can hang test the fan on the motorcycle you would be able to better discover if its a fan or bike problem. Since you know that it works on the bench.

:cheers:

[levi]

All of this info and experience sharing is great. It's saved me a lot of preliminary searching and reading that usually happens before the job. Thanks.

As soon as I get an idea of what the motor is drawing, and I hunt down any evidence of a short, I'll be back to report.

Thanks to jimi, Mark and wickedGnarly

[levi]

Here's a couple of pictures from the last go round.

http://www.buellxb.com/buell_images/5460_20120613223903_L.jpg



http://www.buellxb.com/buell_images/5460_20120613223729_L.jpg

[Carl0s]

I would go for the fan. if the fans resistance is only 0,5ohm it would take ~25A to run the fan. No wonders that it blows fuse.

[levi]

Winner winner chicken dinner.

Carlos wins the cigar. The damn thing blew the fuse in my meter so it was in excess of 20A. I should have done the math first and saved myself some time.

New fan is on the way from Surdyke unless someone can point me to a lower priced alternative.

I'll replace the fan and report back with a post-mortem of my blown fan. Thanks everyone for really bringing the tech on this problem. Thanks for helping even though I was being stubborn about maybe being able to save the fan.

Be back soon with the follow up post..

Levi
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