Cooling Fan Short to Ground

[Boaski]

Over the last few weeks I finally accomplished a few things and fixed some nagging problems: new wheels & tires as well as fix the flickering low fuel light. After I put the fuel pump back in I hooked up the tablet through Buell tooth and checked my error messages. The only one that was showing was the Cooling Fan 1 short to ground. The fan that was in there was a SPAL replacement that I put in about 3 years & 5,000 miles ago. It spun smooth, but wouldn't spin when I tried to force it on through ECM Droid. I checked all of the wires for a short, wiggled everything I could find and disconnected the old fan...still got the same error. I went ahead and ordered a new fan from amazon and swapped out the motor & fan blade. As soon as I did that I was able to clear the error & force the fan to run. I did go ahead and power the old fan with 12 volts from the battery. It fired right up and ran smooth.
It seems strange that I was getting a "short to ground" error when I could find not shorts & a new fan motor made it all go away.

Back to the fuel pump; there was a disturbing amount of crud laying the pockets of the aluminum fuel pump base. The stuff on the blue towel all came out of there.
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I fixed the sensor issue by splitting a piece of fuel line and making a sleeve to go between the wires and the aluminum extrusion.
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Back on the road again.

[Barrett]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
As soon as I did that I was able to clear the error & force the fan to run. I did go ahead and power the old fan with 12 volts from the battery. It fired right up and ran smooth.
It seems strange that I was getting a "short to ground" error when I could find not shorts & a new fan motor made it all go away.

Nicely done on the pump harness. That tiny section of wiring rubbing against the pump housing which is grounded has been a source of blown 10A pump fuses for 20 years now.

This nagging and common FC #36 or "fan short to ground" is because an XB cooling fan has a rather unique relationship with the ECM if you consider how it functions. The ECM not only conducts the ground to activate but also varies the run-speed according to mapped parameters. The moment the ECM sees a resistance value or slightly out-of-wack voltage draw that it doesn't like....here comes FC #36. That is precisely what you experienced.

[Boaski]

I'm probably fortunate that the low fuel glitch showed up because there was the same tiny bare spot in one of the fuel pump wires as well. It was only a matter of time before the blown fuses started.

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You've got to really zoom in to see the tiny bare spots on the 2 wires.

[34nineteen]

Win for Boat Ski!!!!