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Cooling fan resistor , will my fan still work ?

5K views 11 replies 5 participants last post by  amc49 
#1 ·
#3 ·
that's a common issue on this forum; surprised you haven't seen it.

It's the low-speed half of the Focus's 2-stage cooling fan. Removing it reduces your cooling system to a one-speed fan that kicks on with the A/C or when the engine is on a trajectory to overheating. Of course, if your old resistor was already rotted away (open-circuit), then the fan won't even realize that you removed it.

If you haven't noticed this already, then you will start seeing the temp gauge creep over to the 2 o'clock position when you're sitting in traffic, at which point the 2nd-stage fan will kick on and the needle will creep back to 12 o'clock.

The added heat stress over the life of the vehicle certainly won't make the engine any younger, but from what I gather, many (most??) old Foci are on the road and completely unaware that their resistor died ages ago. (me)
 
#7 ·
The resistor controls low speed on both fans. High fans come on bypassing resistor at 240+ degrees or around 250+ psi highside on a/c.

Car will run with high fan only but it's a backup, you'll toast engine if that fails, the double fan speed setup is an automatically backed up system unless you insist on running it half failed. Head gasket jobs are always cheaper than resistors right?

When my resistor failed I rebuilt it and connector for like $7-$8 worth of parts. The resistor coil itself does not go bad, only the connections.
 
#8 ·
mine was solid rust , i poke it with my finger and it just fell apart. im going to get a new one , and i didnt even bother to put the fan back in , its been around 30 degrees or lower here latley and the temp gauge stays right below half , and i keep the heat cranked. I will be buying a new one in a few days. thanks for the help
 
#10 ·
Look how big the rest of the fan system connectors are as compared to the resistor connection, the resistor connector is smaller, and right at a heated point from resistor itself. Gotta wonder how much that engineer's college education cost......

No wonder Fords catch on fire so much, just saw another news story on it again couple of days ago.
 
#11 ·
Coming from a little experience, I wouldn't blame the engineer. The real people to blame for this type of cost cutting are the business execs who cant tell their rear end from an end wrench that the enineers have to ultimatley heed too.
The type of decision making they practice is a direct result of the buisness culture in the coorporation which is the result of the board of directors.

Wish I spoke Japanese sometimes.
 
#12 ·
Well I gotta agree with some of that too. Ford has had a big problem with repeat issues with overheating parts on model after model in the last 20 years. This after manufacturers have known for 50 years how to design parts that won't melt. Continually screwing with smaller and cheaper components while still moving same amounts of power or more around has lead to some of this. Electricity still uses same laws now as then, it takes a certain cross section of metal to carry power, especially at connections. When you flaunt that you get fires. In short, the bean counters should take some of it, the cars are made too cheap. When I rebuilt the resistor, I made sure it would never melt again by design just as I did with the bigger battery cable I made to replace the melted OEM one.
 
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