Thats a good question. I am going to add to what I have written above.

If one could over heat I would have thought it would have been mine and that is why I added the fan.

What I do with mine is pull a self powered 50 inch bushhog and run the honda in first gear.

I remember when I first started doing this in the 90 degree heat, I thought I was being cooked when going slow and the heat rising up from the engine. That motor was hot and not just a little and the light never came on. That is why I think it is a sensor.

One thing I did do when running it this hot was to keep the oil changed or at about 25 hours.

The best thing was though to add the fan, it blew air across the fins and at the same time blew the hot air away, instead of rising up to me.

 

i think there is something else wrong with your quad than just the fan. i have a 1991 honda 300 4x4 and i ride it hard but the overhead light never once comes on. i dont have a fan on it either. it might not be overheating it could just be the sensor that is bad and is actually thinking it is overheating when really it isnt

 

Actually I have seen some 300's come with fans installed.A friend who bought one of these units new was told by the dealer that they were maufactured so equiped for use in other countries(it may have been austrailia or new zealand) but some got shipped to canada.Whether or not this is true I do not know but I can tell you that some units did arrive at dealers equiped with fans.

 

i wasnt saying anything about the fan just that there could be some other problem with the quad

 

Maybe I can help with this one. First, I agree with Raptory, no way your oil temp gets hot enough in 5 minutes to make your oil light come on. Honda offered an access fan as previously mentioned for the 300's. If it's a homeade deal like Raptory's, this probably won't apply to you. The way Honda operates it's cooling fans is to supply power at all times (possibly even when the ignition switch is turned off in some cases). Then the sending unit supplies the ground if said fluid (in this case oil) is the right temperature. The sending unit is located under a metal cover (small black) right by your right ankle. You will find three sending units there. Can't remember for sure the color of the oil temp sensor, but the neutral light is green\red, reverse light is grey, so the other one is your temp sensor. If everything is working correctly in fan circuit, you should be able to turn on both your temp indic and the cooling fan by unplugging this wire and grounding it with a jumper wire or needle nose to your engine cases (be sure to use a good ground). If light and fan come on at this point you have a faulty sending unit. If light works but no fan. You need to find the 2 pin coupler from the fan and check for power there on the blue\black wire (almost sure on the color) with the ignition switch turned on. If none, check your fuse (Honda likes to put these in weird places so look closely) and trace back to it's source. If you have power at the two pin connector, you need to inspect the fan. Check for sticks caught in the blades , spin the fan with your fingers and it should spin easily. If you have power on the blue\black (might be solid black) two pin fan coupler. You can also ground the other wire, most likely solid green (Always a ground on Honda) but possibly black (that is if the pos lead is blue black), essentially applying power directly to it. From your description, the problem could be the sending unit (comes on prematurely) or the wire from it to the cooling fan is touching ground somewhere. However, your cooling fan should be running if it's the case, so you may have more than one problem!! Could be somebody's got something all amiss on it. Either way, Rather than fret on it too much. Maybe you should bring it to a Honda dealer with a good tech. As it shouldn't take long at all to get to the bottem of it. stay cool good luck

 

Thanks dzzy for that response.

 

oh darn ijeep, missed the post of yours before about the fan wires going to a black box. May be a fan motor control unit Honda used sometimes (I think to make the cooling fan come on before the temp light does)!! If you want, post the number and color of wires to it and maybe I can tell you how to bypass it for troubleshooting. That could be your problem too.

 

Dzzy and others, thanks a lot for the information. I think that I will start by pulling that cover and playing with the ground on the sending unit. I will also take a picture of that black box that I mentioned. This thing has a bunch of wires going into it (its about 2x3x1 if I remember correctly). It maybe be a few days until I can tear into this guy again, but I will definately let you guys know what I come up with. Thanks again.