Chrysler Repair: Chrysler T&C radiator fan relay, amp fuse, valid diagnosis

Question
My 1998 Chrysler Town & Country 3.8L overheats at idle. I took it to the dealer last year, and they replaced the radiator fan relay, which was under recall, and it worked for several months. Then it started overheating again, so I took it back, and again, they replaced the relay. Now it started again, but now the dealer says that it has a bad fan module which causing too much load on the relay, causing it to go bad. I know very little about this stuff, but I don't want to pay the $660 bucks the dealer quoted me if this is something I can fix myself. Can I fix this by buying a radiator fan assembly for around $200 and swapping it out myself? Is there a way to bypass the relay so the fan runs all the time? Any help would be appreciated.

Answer
P.S.
I should also mention that you can test the fan circuit relay by simply turning on the A/C. The fans are always on when the A/C is in use.
Roland




Hi Joe,
Has it been proven to your satisfaction that the relay has gone bad again? Have you verified that the fans are not coming on when the temp gauge shows it is running on the hot side? That may be due to a faulty engine temp sensor (different sensor than that for the gauge, possibly) which has to sense that the coolant system is running too hot in order for the fan relay to be energized. Then the fan motor relay could be bad, but I would want to measure the current draw from the fan assembly before I replaced that. It is operated by a 40 amp fuse, so one could measure the current draw thru that fuse to decide if that is so high as to damage the relay without blowing the fuse. If the dealer just gave you an opinion with out doing any tests I would not consider that a valid diagnosis. Are you sure that the correct relay was used to carry the load of up to 40 amps?
Has the fan motor 40 amp fuse ever blown?
You can by-pass the relay by jumpering a wire between the light green/dark blue wire and the black wire at the relay socket, but I would be concerned that it would shorten the life of the fan motors. You might also want to consider checking whether the engine thermostat is opening at too high a temperature or that the cooling system could be helped by a flush out. Those would of course only be relevant if the coolant temp sensor and the fan function was found to be o.k.
Let me know if you have any more questions or need clarification.
Roland