Cooling fan failure

Sgt Bilco

Sgt Bilco

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I was sitting in traffic a couple of weeks ago and thought to myself, "that's odd, the cooling fan hasn't come on"! I was meeting a mate and as soon as I pulled over, teh old girl ejected the radiator coolant all over the floor.

Quick check and the fuse had blown so put a new one in which blew again.

Turns out that if you drop an S10, the cooling fan assembly can get damaged and upon close inspection, you can see wear that fan has rubbed against the rad.

I took teh fan off and it spins very roughly and I suspect it's been like this for a while and eventually cried enough and stopped working.

The kicker in this whole saga is a new fan is, I hope you're sitting down, £574.00 plus vat which is daylight robbery at it's finest.

There are two alternatives:

Buy from Yoshiparts in Japan for about £350 which is more palatable or apparently a late model FJR fan motor is the same so for the cost of that, you swap teh bits over.

For the life of me I can't find a used FJR fan with the same Denso part number so it looks like Yoshiparts.

They will ship from Japan so has anyone used them?

Also, does anyone have a fan kicking about of an S10?
 
A fan is a fan. 45 years ago I put a fan out of a talbot alpine into a ford cortina. I was a bit of a meddler and could bodge up something if I hit the idea in my head. JJH
 
squibb34 said:
The FJR fan motor swap is the answer - dissemble the fan by removing the fan blades & mounting brackets, so you just have the motor itself to re-mount & splice in. There are several on eBay with UK breakers currently.

This from the S10 forum .......... https://yamahasupertenere.com/index.php?threads/cheaper-fan-motor-replacement.36455/#post-553892
Click to expand...

Excellent and thanks for that. I've located an FJR fan assembly from Sherlocks and although the blade size is different, the fan motor looks very similar.

I'll be doing this next Saturday so I'll let you know how it goes.
 
Thanks for sharing. I had a low side on my S10 whichh bent the givi crash bars inwards. Will double check the fan integrity.
Good luck with the repair. It's a poor fan design given the bike's purpose and expected use.
 
Found a used FJR fan from James Sherlock which was £35 delivered. Saying that, it looked brand spanking new.

Stripped the bike down to get at the fan assembly which involves lifting the fuel tank. If I were to do it again, I wouldn't bother but you learn as you go.

IMG_2390.jpeg

The fan assembly is on the nearside and easy to get at and I could feel the fan spinning roughly and rubbing on the rad so definitely f*cked.

IMG_2391.jpeg

I suspect the fan has been rubbing for a while and it just finally gave up the ghost. You can see where it's rubbed on the rad but no real damage.

IMG_2288.jpeg

I tried to get to the connector to unplug the fan but it's buried deep in the bike. Looking at it, I'd of had to remove the airbox at minimum to get at it and even then it would be difficult.

IMG_2392.jpeg

Easiest thing to do is cut the wires on the old fan motor and remove the assembly.

IMG_2393.jpeg

Stripped the new fan down to get at the motor which is the only bit I need and it's very straightforward.

IMG_2395.jpeg

Put the new motor in the old assembly and added a couple of spacers to give a bit more clearance to the radiator. Joined the wires up, tidied everything up and hit the starter.

IMG_2394.jpeg

Ran the bike up to temperature and at 99c, bingo, the fan cut in nicely.

A couple of hours work saved me about £600 so very satisfied about being able to get that job done.
 
Just out of interest how has the reliability been so far? is this one of very few problems as the fan could well just be worn out. I had mine for 5 years and apart from someone wearing out the tyres and the same person blowing the fuse for the Aux socket due to plugging in a tyre compressor mine was far more reliable than the 2008 1200GSA I had for the same length of time. Also only I recall for a wiring loom issue checked on an annual service.
 
Sgt Bilco said:
Found a used FJR fan from James Sherlock which was £35 delivered. Saying that, it looked brand spanking new.

Stripped the bike down to get at the fan assembly which involves lifting the fuel tank. If I were to do it again, I wouldn't bother but you learn as you go.

View attachment 520152

The fan assembly is on the nearside and easy to get at and I could feel the fan spinning roughly and rubbing on the rad so definitely f*cked.

View attachment 520153

I suspect the fan has been rubbing for a while and it just finally gave up the ghost. You can see where it's rubbed on the rad but no real damage.

View attachment 520154

I tried to get to the connector to unplug the fan but it's buried deep in the bike. Looking at it, I'd of had to remove the airbox at minimum to get at it and even then it would be difficult.

View attachment 520157

Easiest thing to do is cut the wires on the old fan motor and remove the assembly.

View attachment 520158

Stripped the new fan down to get at the motor which is the only bit I need and it's very straightforward.

View attachment 520155

Put the new motor in the old assembly and added a couple of spacers to give a bit more clearance to the radiator. Joined the wires up, tidied everything up and hit the starter.

View attachment 520156

Ran the bike up to temperature and at 99c, bingo, the fan cut in nicely.

A couple of hours work saved me about £600 so very satisfied about being able to get that job done.
Click to expand...
Had to repair a leaky radiator some years whilst away; it was different to yours in so much as it had rotted along the bottom matrix; managed to get it back to the campsite and stripped it down; we cut out the rotten section with my leatherman; and resealed the water passage; i then filled it up and carried on with my Holiday; the new radiator for the ZZR was nothing like that yamaha price.
 
I cleaned the rusty fan cowling on my Tmax this weekend and repainted with hammerite, again I bet new fans from Yamaha for it are in the hundreds so I've watched this thread of yours with interest.

They take the piss sometimes with pricing, I've just fitted a pattern Chinese radiator to my Tmax for £97 as the OE Yamaha item from Fowlers was £540. My old rad was corroded and partially choked and would probably have disintegrated under cleaning, the only drama was needing an M18 x 1.5 bung due to an extra sensor socket on the new rad.

Due to sitting underslung across the frame in front of the engine behind the front wheel, the Tmax rads can take a real blasting from road grime over the years despite a fender extender being fitted.

The new rad is so efficient at rejecting heat now that despite waiting ages I can't get the engine gauge over 50% for the fan to cycle on.
 
barny said:
Just out of interest how has the reliability been so far? is this one of very few problems as the fan could well just be worn out. I had mine for 5 years and apart from someone wearing out the tyres and the same person blowing the fuse for the Aux socket due to plugging in a tyre compressor mine was far more reliable than the 2008 1200GSA I had for the same length of time. Also only I recall for a wiring loom issue checked on an annual service.
Click to expand...

Reliability has been just about perfect and as far as I'm aware, they don't really have any big issues.
 
Had to space mine off with a couple of washers after a light drop early on. Could hear the blade’s catching the rad. Couldn’t see any real reason why, the bracket could only have moved a little. Been fine ever since with the washers. Got better than OE crash bars on it now.
Are you not running better crash bars on yours Chris?
Thinking about it, I wonder if the rad mount on the crash bar on that side causes this to happen???
 
Nippy Normans supply Touratech, Wunderlich, Desert Fox and many other makes of accessories.
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