Radiator fan not working.

Hi Chaps, here goes……

 1983 GTi, bog standard.

 30A fuse in pos 1 is not blown, double checked with meter.

  Disconnected fan and took volts reading from fan plug whilst bridging thermo switch plug, no volts showing.

  Taken reading from thermo switch plug + side down to earth and no volts.

 It appears that there is no relay for the cooling fan circuit, i could be mistaken as i was kneeling in snow and my concentration was rapidly diminishing.

 So…. we have an apparently intact circuit which isn't. I will go over this at the weekend, chasing/ belling out cables as i go but is there any known areas for this circuit to fail so as to save me much blood loss and swearage  

 One other thing, the "fuse labelling card" which pulls down to reveal the fuses / relays is all in German. Was this normal for early VWs? i would of assumed they'd of printed one in English for the UK market.

 Thanks in advance.

   Rob.

take german lessons
fuse layout is in the sticky and the haynes, so no worries

sounds like the +ve has a break in the wire somewhere, but it might be the pin is very corroded. id cut it off and crimp on a fresh one, or at least peel bot back and give it a damn good buffing.

well, what i would actually do is convert it to mk2 golf style fan loom & switch as the mk2 has a nice waterproof boot over the sensor pins so it doesnt corrode. then it runs to a 2 pin plug near the battery so you can disconnect and remove rad easier. though this plug isnt waterproof so the good work done on the fan switch has gone to waste

anyway, check the fusebox end of the wire as well, maybe there is corrosion at the pin. also check inside the fuse socket to make sure 12v is making it there, and check the fuse with multimeter as well since they can sometimes get a hairline crack in that is hard to spot.

It's been a while..

 Anyway, The fan motor terminals had been bust by a previous owner and both were pushed inside the motor casing. The result of this is that the terminal plug would push home but did not make. This does not explain a few of the earlier readings but hey ho.

The replacement fan motor was a generic one for "14 different models of VW" so apart from it being a two speed fan, it would work fine. I fitted the new fan, got the car up to temp and when the fan kicked in i decided to have a nose about in the engine bay. God knows why. While i was, i noticed the rubber flaps on the metal fan cowling were being pushed open. Yeah, it turns out that if you fit this new fan motor you also need to reverse the pins in the terminal plug otherwise it sucks heat from the engine and blows it through the rad. they failed to mention that and it was lucky i found it!

 Cheers.

 Rob.