Happy Holiday and my Mini is DOWN.
The car has about 50K off warranty so now its my problem.
In the past Mini gave me a new electric radiator cooling fan. My car is now overheating again and the fan is not coming on. My friend checked both relays and fuses related to the fan and they are all good. I have a few questions:
* Is this a common problem?
* Best shop manual I can get?
* Where might the sensor be for the cooling fan?
* Is there an upgrade to the cooling fan?
* Should this electric fan come on whenever there is a call for A/C?
I am in a real bind here - any help would be appreciated.
I miss my Mini.
-NTI

 

Fan only comes on with temperature - but A/C usage will heat the car more and make the fan come on more likely.

Are you certain the fuses are OK?
The standard failure of the earlier MINIs is that something jams the power steering cooling fan, which blows the fuse shared with the radiator cooling fan.

 

Your cooling fan and power steering fan are actually on the same circuit; this design fault was corrected in late 2003. This means that if your PS fan sucks in a stick or plastic bag and jams, it will blow the same fuse shared by the cooling fan. Of course, you report that the fuses look ok so this may not be case. But just to be sure, climb under the car and look up into the PS fan shroud to make sure things are clear at the fan rotates easily.

Also, check Fuse Panel 3 which is located next to the left front strut tower in the engine compartment. You're looking for Fuse F05 (5 amps), which should be the fifth fuse from the "engine-end" of the Fuse Panel.

If a jammed/frozen PS fan is causing the issue, correct the fan issue. There is a TSB from MINI/BMW to separate the circuits and correct this problem; even though you are out of warranty, MINI should fix it for free.

Hope this helps,

Theo

PS - GBMINI beat me to this!

 

Of course

 

what we checked was all the ATC style fuses under the bonnet and visually checked the larger (30amp / 50amp etc) for a melt down. We also pulled the the fan relay and outside of the car applied 12volts to 85 & 86 to pull the coil in and had continuitiy between terminal 30 and 87. Thank you for answering the part about the call for A/C not bringing on the fan unless a temperature is hit. note: why I asked that is some vehicles are wired to pull the fan on a low speed whenever you put on the A/C, even with a cold engine.

Thanks Theo, I type slow and missed your post. More checking will be done after dinner Thanks much to you both, and i'll report what I find later.

 

I would suspect the relay and resistor in the fan and shroud assembly. This is a fairly common failure and requires the replacement of the whole fan assembly.

Steve

 

Thank you is in order. I went back to the fuse block and the only fuse on the right side that wasn't a normal ATC style was # 5. Why I didn't pull it and check it is that I guess I was trying to go by symbols

#5 being different and blown leads me to believe it was sort of like a delay type 5amp. Anyway I crawled underneath to check the PS fan and it seemed free so I put in a regular 5amp and everything works. I did notice that the PS fan seems to be catching on the housing on stopping that I'll address later after I go after Mini on that TSB on spliting the fan circuits.
Do I need to mention a TSB # or anything?
Now to clarify things a bit I'm MiniNTI step Dad and I thought my days of stuffing this disabled body under a car so low was done with when I sold my 280i TVR
Here is a fan controllor that I just installed on a project car and what a difference to have the fan not doing the on / off cycling and ramping up to only what you need for cooling.
http://www.dccontrol.com/

Thanks again, till next time Wayne aka 11B40

 

Excellent - well done on finding the issue