KAWI DAN YOU ARE SCAREING THE SH*T OUT OF ME!

Never too late take it back and tell them to fix it. I would not even drive your quad the way it's wired.

First and MOST important never put anything that essential on the same fuse as your DC plug you blow your fuse on your DC and your FAN IS OFF.

All my extras except my hand/thumb warmer are totally independant of my electical of my bike even my wench is wired up so I have to turn it on and off. I have independant fuse etc... for everything GPS, helmet communcators, radio, Cell phones etc....

My fan will kick on when the bike wants it on. I can set my switch to on and it would be on all the time, so yes when my fan is switched to the off the fan will still come on. Mine is a normal switch for like on and off nothing complicated. NO matter of how I have my setting of switches the fan will be on when needed. Tell your dealer that this is not acceptable. and you want it wired right.

 

Mike Penland hotwires his fan right to the battery. Any time the engine is running the fan is turned on via a toggle. The only reason he has the toggle on there is to kill the fan when the engine is not running. He has done this will all his race machines. No problems yet.

 

Kawi650

I just came back from the store. I purchased a toggle switch.

It might not be wired to the DC adapter. I just figured that this would be the logical power source for the fan. I just checked it out and they spliced it into a brown wire near the radiator cap, so I just assumed that it would be the DC adapter.

I never thought the consequences of blowing a fuse and disabling the fan. Now you have me scared. LOL!!! I'm going to call the dealer tomorrow to find out which power source they used. Also I'm hoping that wired it in parallel to the existing temp switch that controls the fan now. This means that if the switch is off, the fan would still turn on if got hot.

Once I find out how the spliced it, I'll determine what I should do. But I do agree with you. It's not a good idea to have it wired this way if they used the DC power source.

 

Lurch77

I'm glad to hear that Mike does this to his bike. The only thing is that it gets really cold up here in Canada in the winter and I don't think it would be a good idea to have running all the time in the winter. That's why I like the idea of a toggle switch.

 

Sorry but I fail to see what your going to gain by running the fan all the time. Most current motors are designed to run at a particular temp and when you hot wire the fan your forcing the motor to run at a temp that its not designed to run at. Not to mention the premature wear on the fan. Id rather let the bike work on how it was designed to work, instead it sounds like an opinion of the local mechanic has influenced the decision to do this mod to your bike. I think you should ask to see a copy of the info that your dealer had to received from Kawi. If they either refuse to show you and cant show you the info then id call Kawi yourself. The fan as we already know will come on with the key on or off so there's is simply no need to override the operation of the fan. This mod imo gives us too much room to forget and screw something up. And I have experimented on over-riding similar devices with devastating results. Sorry im really not ranting just thinking out loud.....Rob

 

...I like the Idea of driving it in water, up over the fan blade...let it run there for.....say 10 min... then when the motor burns out ..take it back to the kaw dealer and say...look..your idea is not working...repeat the above iwhen they put on a new fan motor on under warranty...that sucks having your fan run constantly....sounds like a "THIRD WORLD DESIGN"..........

 

Well guys, I just called the dealership to find out exactly how they hooked the fan up. According to the service guy, they didn't disable or unhook the original wirring or features of the fan. All they did was run another wire parallel to the original that would power the fan all the time. He told me that if I went ahead and installed the toggle switch, the fan would come on if needed if the switch was in the off position. I also asked him which power source they used to power the fan, and he said that it was the key switch power source.

So I now feel better about this setup. I'm going to go ahead and install the switch. I will probably always have the switch turned off and let the original setup do the cooling of the bike. What I like about this new setup is that I now have the option and turning on the fan if I feel that the bike needs it.

That other weekend when I had the overheating problem, the fan would kick in. Once the overheating light came on, I would stop and the fan would run for a few minutes. Once the fan shutoff, there was no other way to cool off the bike. With this setup, I will be able to flick the switch and start the fan again.

 

Kawidan what I did when mine overheated I would let the fan run until it shuts it's self off then start it for about 20 seconds and the shut the bike off and let the fan run again for 5 minutes. Also you will find when your rad is clogged your bike will run cooler if you take of the cover over your airbox, this traps a lot of heat it and when you have that off and the fan switch on it shouldn't overheat unless the rad is very clogged up with mud.

 

Kawi650

Well I got my fan hooked up to my toggle switch. Works like a charm. If I turn the fan to the on position, the fan will run all the time. If I put it in the off position, it will stop. I then let the bike run idling for about 5 minutes with the switch to the off position and the fan came on using the sencor. So it's back to the original way now, but I have my cool switch option to enable to fan if I feel the need for it.

Good tip on the air box cover. On the day that my bike overheated, I took this cover off and I couldn't beleive the heat coming up from the engine.

Now I'll have to go try out my new setup LOL!!!


Dan