Newfiedan

I have seen several efan setups on f150 forums and I though I would share mine with everyone so that they can save some cash and with a little time you can install your own setup if you have a local pick n pull or junkyard. What you will need:
1) a 95+ mercury grand marquis electric fan. ($40 bucks with harness)
2) 1 maxifuse holder with weather boot ($5)
3) 1 bussman bp/hhh mini fuse tap ($4)
4) 1 60 amp maxi fuse ($2)
5) Some 10 gauge wiring approx 10 - 15 feet ($5-10)
6) 2 temp shttps://www.f150forum.com/newthread.php?do=newthread&f=4witches (I used a simple hayden 3653 switches) ($51.53 delivered)
7) 14 gauge wiring came with the switches with lots to spare so not to worry about more wiring.
8) 8 1" long 1/4" bolts with washers, lock washers and nuts
9) 1/4" and 3/8" glue lined or double wall shrink tube, rosin core solder and a mini torch.
10) some 1/8" flat bar I used some scrap from another project for brackets.
11) 1 pack black electrical zip ties (8" or longer) ($10)
12) 3/8" loom approx 20' optional but I recommend it ($15)

So why a grand marquis fan? Simple its from a similar size v8, 2 speed and an easy choice as they are very reliable plus it moves a ton of air. I wanted to make mine completely reversible so I reused the factory shroud to make it bolt on and easily reversed should it ever fail. I wanted simple thermostatic switches so the hayden 3653 fit the bill, I have used them in the past on gm trucks with no issues. You are going to want to hunt down your grand marquis and tools in hand cut back as much or the 3 wire harness for the fan as you can get I cut back about 3 feet. On the passenger side you will see 2 relays in a separate box you will also want to get these with about a foot or 2 of wire harness and if possible unbolt the bracket that the relays mount to, my bracket was welded to the inner fender so I made my own mount with some old sheet metal. I will explain in the wiring diagram. Now you are going to want a jig saw, a paint marker and a drill with a 1/4" bit.

1) remove factory fan with the proper tool and remove the shroud, take your time here and be careful when removing it as to not damage the shroud or the rad.
2) Set the grand marquis fan face down on the ground and lay your factory shroud on top facing up, mark out the circle with the paint marker. Now cut off the excess and leave a bit of extra plastic so that you can fit to shape afterward like so:


3) next you will want to lay it in place and temporarily mounted like so:


Now you will want to line up the back end and make your brackets like so with hand bent 90 degree brackets Some L shaped metal can work as well:



Now sit back and check out the fitment:


I recessed mine into the shroud so that it sits round about where the old fan was. I then reinstalled the efan setup for fitment and clearance to my pulleys. it fit great so I then drilled some 1/4" holes along the upper radius of the shroud to secure my wiring to with electrical zip ties. I mounted my relays to the shroud on the passenger side half ways down. and then wired one end of each relay to the green wire (high speed larger relay) and the blue (low speed to the smaller relay) The black wire was extended to reach the negative terminal of the battery. Now onto the thermostatic switches, I installed mine into the rad as per the instructions in the kit like so:


One thing I will note here is that you will need to have the shroud and the upper brackets removed to mount them. Make sure you follow the instructions when mounting them I mounted them as close to the upper rad hose as possible. and the secured the switches to the shroud top. Pictures of the mounted switches:


Now you will want to hook up the maxi fuse holder to the battery and insert the 60 amp maxi fuse. The wire for that will connect to the red and yellow wires for the relays. This feeds constant fused power to the relays, however you can choose to leave the fuse out until all the wiring is done. The fuse holder will look like this:


I chose to loom my wiring which is optional I used about 20 feet of 3/8" loom. I tested my relays and they are ford oem relays so good quality. You will be grounding the small green blue wire and the black wire to the negative terminal with some of the blue wire. The other 2 wires for the relays will go to your thermostatic switches. Red and red blue will go to them. Now for the keyed power to feed the thermostatic switches, this is where you will need to feed a wire through the firewall grommet with a wire coat hanger or other stiff wire. It will run to your factory fuse panel and connect there on keyed power like so:


Top corner nearest the rear of the fuse panel gave me a good place to tap into with the bussman bp/hhh and no damage to the fuse panel. This is why I used it, I love these for quick add a fuse application, note do not exceed 10 amps for the bottom or top fuses. This then attaches to the top terminals of the thermostatic switches. as seen above in the mounting pics.
Lastly turn the switches all the way up with a small screwdriver and start the truck, if you copied me the switch on the right controls low speed and the one of the left controls high. I waited for my truck to hit its full operating temp and then turned my low speed until it started up, next I killed power to it and waited for it get 10 degrees hotter then set the high speed one to come on. Now reconnect the low speed power wire and you are good to go for a run taking the screw driver with you to tweak as needed. With this setup it moves a lot of air (approx 4500 cfm) so the fans will not stay on to long if its cool out. I took it for a good run in stop and go traffic and it worked like a charm. Total investment on the high end is $138 cdn or $122 US. Much cheaper than what most people have invested into it, as a side note the reason why I changed mine to electric was that my fan was shot and it was $80 for a new one here so I decided to spend a few extra dollars and just go electric. As a bonus it will save me some gas and get me a very small power gain. I hope you guys liked the write up and it is possible to do it cheaper if you have some of the items around like I did. Total into it for me was just under $100 as I had some of the items listed laying around from other projects. I soldered and shrunk tubed all my connections to make them weather proof, I highly recommend you do that or use heat shrinkable butt connectors either way do not use simple butt connectors as it will corrode over time. My goal was to make an simple install that was reversible if need be. I will make a schematic with ms paint and post that later on.

Newfiedan

schematic as promised

lewissa81

Nice write up!

JimWills

Impressive, it goes to show what thought an ingenuity can do! The only thing I would suggest would be to add an input so the fan runs in low speed when the AC is on. I am going to start looking for a salvage yard with a donor car, I assume a Crown Victoria will work as well

Newfiedan

So I wanted to add an update now with the warm weather we are getting now +30 Celsius or so. It works like a top keeping the truck nice and cool. I will be adding an a/c override wire this weekend using a blocking diode for when the compressor is on. When the fan is on high speed and at a stand still the a/c is ice cold.

Mod (Ret.)

One question: how do you disable the fan when you are at highway speeds? This is where a controller helps; it can detect "drag" that happens when the vehicle is moving forward, and turn the e-fan power off.

With a factory vehicle and e-fan, the vehicles most likely uses the vehicle speed sensor circuit from the PCM/ECU to disable the power to the electric fan; this would now be a function of the controller one would use.

dhonnoll

I don't think they are quite that complicated to use vss etc. Most people steal the dual relay controller out of a Volvo, and a BMW temp sens. The BMW temp sensor comes on at 180 degrees then high at 205 or 210. The Volvo controller cuts power to low speed and sends only to high speed like it should when that condition is met. Or at least that is how I understand it to work. What Newfiedan is about to do is what I was wondering how to do. How do you let the AC kick the fan on, and not have the fan kick the AC on. I was thinking tap AC hot, run that to a RELAY let the relay be the disconnect so when fan is on, it doesn't turn AC on.

Mod (Ret.)

On vehicles that are equipped with an electric fan clutch (not e-fan), I think the VCC is used to disengage power to the electric fan clutch when the vehicle reaches a certain speed, much like how the older style centrifugal fan clutches would stop spinning when the engine RPM's reached a certain speed.

Not really sure if it's bad on an e-fan if it continues to spin when the vehicle is moving forward at speed though.

Newfiedan

No it is temperature controlled only when you drive forward it kicks out once it cools just like old vehicles.

dhonnoll

What blocking diode are you going to be using? How many amps does it need to be and where can I get one?