Hi David,
The problem you've faced is not a conflict between the radio or the fan. Either
your cable to the fan is not strong (thick) enough or you have connected it to
an already weak cable that supplies the current to the fuse box. Contact
corrosions and old cables increase the electrical resistance of the wire. This
is quite common for older cars (especially at British cars where Lucas was
involved - sorry you guys in the UK, Lucas has improved now!)
I connected a cable to the hot terminal of the battery (or you can connect it
to
the alternator output as well), and I used a spare fuse and a separate relay.
The relay is operated by a thermo switch, which closes at 90 degrees Celsius (I
guess that's appr. 210 deg. F).
When the fan starts, it draws quite a lot current (6 to 10 Amps and twice in
the
first few msec). As a result, the voltage drops down and your radio behaves
like
someone disconnect it for a short period.
If your radio is one of the high output, big bass ones, you should also
consider
to upgrade your alternator. Otherwise, your battery will discharge when you use
the headlamps as well. Before considering an upgrade, you may test this. Turn
on
ALL electrical units (headlamps, fan, flasher, wipers, etc.) with the engine
running, and measure the voltage between the two battery terminals, it should
read 12.8 to 13.5 Volts at least. If not, clean all connectors (don't forget
the
fuse box and the alternator) and try again.
There are several recommendations from the VTR page, I used a FORD Fiesta
alternator with 70 Amps output. It fits directly to my TR6 engine, I just had
to
use different connectors. I do not know whether the Spitfire engine uses
different alternators, maybe someone from the list may help.
Hope that helps.
Good luck,
Jochen Saal
Munich/Germany
74 TR6 Carb
David Moag schrieb:
>
>
> Hello all,
>
> I've recently added an electric fan (as a booster with a switch) and a nice
> stereo to my Spit. I ran a new lead off of the top group of fuses so that it
> would be switched, to a little junction box sort of thing where I connected
> the hot leads for both of these. The problem comes when I am listening to
> the stereo and then turn on the fan (or turn off the fan for that matter) it
> interrupts the stereo long enough that it goes through some sort of reset
> before the music comes back.
>
> Does this imply I'm trying to draw more current through this circuit than it
> can handle? If I took the lead currently coming off of my top fuse and tied
> it to a switched lead off of the solenoid with an inline fuse would this
> help? I suppose I could separate the stereo off of this circuit so that the
> fan does not interfere, but wiring wise it's easy having them both share the
> load.
>
> Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Dave Moag
> 77 Spitfire
> 62 TR3B (deep in it's own wiring quagmire)
>
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