Flex-a-lite Elec Fans OBS write up :)

Howdie yall. Installed flexalite electric fans in the hoe the other day and took a shit load of pics and some info for anyone bout to install them. The overall installation was pretty easy, but very bland instructions. Took me about 4 hours to do it by myself. Very simple tools used as listed. A case of beer would of been helpful.. Here we gooo

Tools:
10 mm socket for shroud
tape measure
drill with bits (just a 1/4" bit)
wire cutter and strippers and crimpers
Elec tape
8 mm wrench for your battery
probably missed some shit..
sorry about the dirty truck

anyways lay out parts so you know what your dealing with


1) remove shroud, upper and lower and the fan as well, reinstall nuts to the fan bolts and the pulley will come off without them! lol




2) Select your brackets and covers you will need for the install, i didnt use the 19"cover and the 19" bottom brackets (look at instructions for what 19" means) ( i only used the washers for the bolts for the brackets, the washers didnt look good under each bolt)


3)Drill 1/4" hole between fans for wires to go through to the other fan.

Pic below shows both positive wires from the fans going into 1 2to1 connector and the other 2to1 connector is for the negatives from the fans

4)Install fans and install brackets and bolts loosely. Go underneath your truck and install the 2 brackets where the lower shroud was installed at. Mark with a pen where you want your holes to be



5) Think of where you want your VSC to go, i put mine on the corner of the fans closest to the battery. you want somewhere where you can hide your wires and shit. Mount your VSC with screws not provided. lol


6)im not going to take the time and tell you what wires go on what number of the box, because it tells you directly in the instructions..

but just some tips that i wish i would of know first..
1)the probe wire is the only wire not long enough, so put the probe into the radiator first then hook up the red connectors and hook up to numbers 10 and 11 of the VSC. You want the probe to be on the top of the radiator furthest from the battery. also when putting in the probe without the fans installed yet, put the black tip on it on the other side of the radiator or else youll have to take the fans out again.. i know sounds complicated, but deal with it

2) They gave plenty of wire for the whole job, besides the probe wires.

3)Youll need to find an ignition wire to tap into, i used my headunit, because i couldnt think of anything on the firewall. Dohh! its oka, itll work..

4) make sure the fans spin freely before turning the truck on, this way if it doesnt spin freely, you can move whatevers in the way of the blades. IE: lower radiator hose and cooler lines.

Be sure to ask for questions and more pics. i have several more and can get more. the whole instruction process and be found here
http://www.flex-a-lite.com/auto/280-99895.pdf
mounting the VSC would look ugly if it was in the middle like pictured in that PDF, wires would be everywhere..

wow great right up.. I bet that set you back a pretty penny. Any difference responsive wise?

Nice writeup will be using it when I get the same fans as you. When I can scrape up the cash...

viximaging said:

wow great right up.. I bet that set you back a pretty penny. Any difference responsive wise?

Click to expand...

it was my first write up ever! yayy lol and thanks man. Well searching the internet and wasting time on it, will always save you money rather then just going out and buying shit. bought them for 250 bucks brand new! compared to 550 right now at summit or jegs. I bought that MSD dizzy for 100 bucks, msrp 350 or something like that, ovcourse it wasnt new, but with an overhaul i was still 200bucks away from a new one! just shop smart..

As for the response, ooh its like day and nite. I gave the good old freeway a test today, going about 65ish and romped on it, thing downshifted and got me to 80 in a couple seconds, even with the ****** TBI and heads, i think im doing fairly well.
Also got stuck in traffic on the freeway, dead stop for 30 min, the fans did excellent at keeping the right temp even in the dead traffic. It was like 50 degrees out, but still, they kept that temp perfect.

The truck is also ALOT quieter now. before i could hardly hear anything when my head was over the motor, now someone could probably whisper in my ear while my heads over the motor and still be able to make out what they said.. lol You can hear the lifters and everything inside going, pretty crazy.

Only draw back from this kit is the AMP DRAW! lol you can tell the fans kick on by looking at the gauge. itll be aout 14.9v on the gauge without them on, then when they do kick on, itll be around 13. looking to get a new alternator soon. Was going to pick one up today (180 amp) but never got around it and dont need to spend any more money. lol

Great write up!

One thing to be careful about are the wires vibrating on the controller and breaking the solder on the terminal connectors. Make sure the wires (especially the bigger power and ground wires) are secures and do not vibrate.

This is what happened to mine:


This decided to happen on one of the hottest days we had around here.

It was problem free for 5+ years until this incident. I re-soldered it and everything works perfectly.

my VSC looks different then yours. What are those blue circles?

and good info, thanks for letting me know

AtomicHoe094 said:

my VSC looks different then yours. What are those blue circles?

and good info, thanks for letting me know

Click to expand...

Its the same but with the cover off. The blue circles are capacitors.

where did you mount your VSC?

Same place you mounted it (where the directions say) but if I had to do it again i would choose a better location.

yea same here. i didnt want it over there like hanging off per-say, but i was nervous when i first started wiring everything to a different location, that i wasnt going to have enough wire. There was plenty of wire to wire the box basically anywhere in the engine compartment.