Fan

The fan in my golf doesn't work off the switch when hot but the fan works fine when permanantly connected to the battery. Could the fan be wired upto something which is live when the car is running (ALTERNATOR ETC.) How could this be done and what would be the best thing to wire it to?

Do you mean heater/blower fan? The dash switches are notorious for failing. Try a new one… they are only cheap. To test it pull the plug off the back of the switch and use a bit of wire to short position 1, then 2, then 3 with the earth feed. If everything works as expected then it's new switch time. If not the the fault lies elsewhere… Probably the resistor pack.

HTH

I mean the radiator fan.

why not just change the switch on the rad? they fail , or it could just be a dodgy connection . On a GTi its on the bottom LHS , rearward side.  Cheap as chips , and i its a tuned engine , an early Transporter uses the same size switch but comes in at a lower temp.

I put in a new switch and cleaned up the connections and it now works. Should it stay on for about 20 seconds after the car is switched off? Does the fan normally come on when the needle on the temp. gauge is about 3/4 up?

Yep - sounds like its running fine.

Well done  - another crisis over.  Much better reult than hard wiring the fan BTW.

M