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<<< Flex-A-Lite Fan Installation >>> |
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Theory: It's no secret that the cooling systems on the 16Vs aren't the best. Mine runs at decent temperatures, but cooler is always better (well, to a certain point). I've heard much about special fans made specifically for the Scirocco by a company called Flex-A-Lite, so I decided to give one a try. The "Griffin" radiator fan, as it's called, is designed to replace the 8V fan shroud (19-21" radiator). But after a little research, I found out that the 8V and 16V share the same fan shroud, so I figured it would fit even though the 16V has a 27" radiator... I was wrong. Read on... |
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The monster of a factory fan shroud. Just looking at it, you can tell that the Flex-A-Lite will be much lighter, as well as more compact. (Flex-A-Lite claims the entire "Griffin" assembly weighs only 6 pounds, which I think is pretty accurate.) |
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To begin, unplug the factory fan harness, and remove the four bolts (two per side) holding the fan shroud to the radiator (mine was actually held on by only three bolts, but the radiator was replaced recently, so it might have been from some mechanics taking shortcuts). Unclip the coolant overflow-tank hose (coming from the upper radiator hose) from the top of the fan shroud. Now pull the fan out, being careful not to scrape the radiator - it's a tight squeeze! |
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Assemble the brackets onto the Flex-A-Lite fan as per the instructions. Now put it in place to find out that it's way too short AND the brackets will only work for the driver side - the passenger side uses clips on the top and bottom of the radiator to attach it to the fan. (This is how the 8V shroud is able to fit the 16V. Such trickery!) Since the bracket on the driver's side worked, that's the side I shifted the fan to (in order to make installation easier). Bad idea... |
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Here's how I mounted the passenger side. I wrapped steel hanger strap (found at your local hardware store) around the radiator then bolted it to the Flex-A-Lite's bracket. |
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Uh oh! Because of the way the Flex-A-Lite is concave shaped at the edge (the factory shroud is convex shaped), the battery will no longer fit. There's an easy fix to this, though... buy a smaller battery! |
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In place of the factory clip, I just zip-tied the overflow-tank hose to the radiator. |
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Now for the wiring... Cut off the harness connector that went to the original fan motor. You'll see three wires - red with a black stripe (low speed), red with a white stripe (high speed), and brown (ground). The diagram is how I relayed mine so that the fan comes on during both low speed and high speed operation. The relays depicted are standard 4-pin auto relays, rated at 30 amps (RadioShack part number 275-226). |
| Word of advice: The Flex-A-Lite has four wires; two power and two ground. Normal logic says red wires are for power and brown wires are for ground. But the Flex-A-Lite's wires were designed with "pushing" in mind (when the fan sits in front of the radiator and blows air through it). So your fan will blow backwards (toward the radiator) if you hook it up this way. To get the fan to be a "puller" instead (as we want it), just reverse the Flex-A-Lite's wires (i.e. pretend brown is power and red is ground). To make this easier to understand, the diagram I made above is color correct. | |
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A few relays and a little electrical tape later, and you're done. Here you can see how I mounted the relays using the Flex-A-Lite's mounting bracket. |
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The finished product. Here's the link to Flex-A-Lite's page where you can find the specs of this fan: http://www.flex-a-lite.com/auto/scirocco.htm |
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Another view... |
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