outlander 2003 normal coolant temperatures

well as expected 112degC is not normal temp, I let the car warm up the 106degC just sitting not going anywhere, and the fans had not turned on, so there is my problem no fans.
I took off the temp control unit at top of radiator, opened it up as much as possible, and appears not meant to be opened up. So not sure if that is working or not, I guess I can test it by getting up to 106degC or any higher tempt and measure if there is 12v output.
( these control units can be bought off aliexpress very cheap)
The control unit has 12v hot all the time, and it switches the fans on/off according to ecu, not sure if there is pwm control or not in it.
Anyhow I also tested the fans...........nothing........nada..........zilch
Fans not working when 12v connected to them, how weird that both fans should stop working. My assumption was the control unit burned a mosfet or similar under high load, causing a voltage spike and buring out the windings. But turns out not the reason for failure.
Opended up the fan motors, and wholly crap..............full of powdery black carbon, and the brushes down to zero almost, just a tiny bit of carbon brush left on end of the wire.
Further the commutators had worn down to the plastic, copper all gone, very unusual, I've never seen that before.
The whole fan unit is really high quality bit of gear, the motors in particular very well made, so what caused the copper commutators to wear down?
Was it inferior copper or just being at the end of the brushes life caused this?
There might be very little tension from the brush srings near end of life brushes causing some contact issues, causing sparking and wearing down the commutator.
anyhow unless I can replace the commutators ( unlikely) these motors are done.
The windings are actually ok, in good condition, haven't checked resistance but they appear fine.
A new fan unit very expensive, newer outlander modles can get whole fan unit quite cheap, but this older model not cheap.
So my car has 222,000km on it, and brushed has reached end of life, so its probably worthwhile changing brushes at 200,000km or so.
Interestingly it appears Lancers of the same era use exact same fans/controller.
If anyone wants some pics of the damage I can post some.

i'll try here goes, note I have spent quite a bit of time cleaning out the black powder covering everything, looks like severe arcing has blown graphite everywhere, quite a mess initially.

green arrow below shows whats left of a brush

I included pic showing copper nail which is exact width of the commutator pads, might try rebuild the commutator using these nails, its quite possible to do.
Also found the commutator can be bought on aliexpress not too expensive, but think it would be as difficult to replace with new commutator as to use the copper nails to fashion new commutator pads.
one more pic

I'll do some info on the instal when done, but here are some pics/info comparing the mk1 and mk2 outlander radiator fan units. The ebay unit I bought off ebay.com.au comes from china, its not original of course, but the quality looks very good.
There are differences between the two units as shown below:
red lines indicate where the two units line up


Pic below shows comparison of the motors, since the mk2 unit is non-original it might
not use same motors as original mk2, I was hoping the unit would have same motors as mk1 original. Mk2 motor is smaller diameter and longer length so cant just swap into mk1 frame unfortunately. I've just shown the mk1 rear plate for size comparison.



Pic below shows fan rotors, pretty much the same interchangeable between mk1/mk2, the 5 blade mk2 slightly different centre shape but interchangeable with mk1.

I ordered a mk1 fan controller unit off ebay ( $28aud), reasonably priced, although my original unit might be ok, not tested yet. These chinese clones are clones in terms of the outer case and connections and the rear heatsink. but the inside of the unit is very different to the original mk1 controller.
They are much simpler build the circuit board appears well made with solder on components machine done good quality build.
Pic below compares the two units opened up ( original unit circuit board not visible only the capacitors):


The cheap chinese one on right above has three mosfet type components screwed onto the heat sink at bottom of pic.
Left one is 30ctq045 : shottkey diode 45v 30amp
Middle and right are: L2203N : 30v 116amp 7 milliohmn mosfets
If these components are genuine irf brand they should be robust.
I cannot see the rear of the chinese clone board , but I assume there will be some larger capacitors there. The orginal mitsubishi controller has some very large good quality capacitors, rated at 50v. I'm guessing their role is to protect the mosfets/diode from voltage spikes/ripples and the brushes sparks onto commutators will be setting up some voltage spikes etc. If the chinese clone lacks these large capacitors then the lifespan might be shortened. I suspect this will be there weakness.
Its obviously considered important in the original the have these large caps. The original caps are 50v .
I quite like the chinese clones though, since they will be much easier to teardown then the original mitsu controllers.
another pic below showing chinese clone, well they are not really clones, someone has developed their own version of the circuit to interpret the ecu signal.


With such a large heatsink for the mosfets I doubt overheating will be an issue, especially if controller is put in the airflow of the fans.
There are also two small ics on the clone, 4269g ( 45v volt reg) and 12f675 ( programmable ic). I'm no expert on electronics, but I suspect for these clones to last a long time they will need decent capacitors added to protect the mosfets.

One difference in the motors of the mk2 replacement and the mk1 original, is the original motors are fully closed, the replacement unit have openings for air cooling under the fan.
I suspect these motors are a bit less powerful than the mk1 motors but air cooled.

I've installed the mk2 outlander fan unit into my mk 1 outlander, process took 3 hours, and was successful. I will outline the details of how to do it in some following photos etc.
I used the new controller and the fans turn on slow speed at 96degC which is in my view quite high but seems thats how its set, I will test the original controller later and see what temp it turns on at if it still works.
Below is pic of the fan unit installed ( before finishing) just to show it fits and is suitable, the right side motor is about 1.5cm from the exhaust, a bit close but I will put some high temp shield to protect it from exhaust heat, it will probably be ok as is since there is already a temperature shield on the exhaust, but I will add additional one just to make sure.

I'll detail here how I went about installing mk2 ( 2007-2012) radiator fan unit in mk1( 2003-2006) outlander.
First of all take off air intake duct and top radiator hose, the filler bottle can also be removed its make a bit more room, it just lifts out. Radiator pipe rotate out of way.

There are a few simple mods needed to the fan housing, easily done with hacksaw.
Have to remove the 4 side tabs they will get in the way.

after removal below

Next step may not be needed but I removed some of one of the fan braces, just to make it easier to maneuver around an aircon pipe.
Two pics below show that mod:


closeup


there is a clip right hand top that also needs be removed as it wont let the fan shroud sit flush with the radiator.

At the bottom of the aluminium radiator should be a small tray that sticks out a little at the base, the bottom of the fan unit will sit on this. I used a few blobs of silicon when installing so that it will be held in place.
Where the tissues are in this pic is the lip of the radiator tray, just soaking up some coolant before adding some silicone.this is looking down from above


I took off the last 1cm or so of the bottom of the fan unit just in case it was a bit longer than the radiator ( might not be necessary). As shown below. bottom left side

below bottom right side

At this stage once I was sure it would all fit in place nicely, I put some silicone on the bottom of radiator just to keep it nicely in place and no vibration issues at bottom.
I also put some silicone along the top horizontal part of the moulded plastic shroud, where it touched the radiator, just enough to hold it in place and stop any vibration issues.
Probably the hardest part was making up some brackets for the top, the mk1 has 4 bolts/nuts that hold it in place, its necessary to make brackets to hold the top of radiator.
Heres one bracket on the right hand side I made out of bits that were cut off the radiator.


Left hand side was similar just used some plastic moulding from another project to do that job. Used some silicone to hold in place and a small screw on the shroud.

I think main thing to consider with the mounting brackets, is to make sure they push down on the shroud and also keep it onto the radiator. A bit tricky takes a little time to make something.

So last piece of the puzzle was where to mount the controller, without having to adjust any of the exising wiring or connectors.I'm only using one bolt to hold the controller in place, its quite adequate. One note, since the controller turns on at 96degC, the air blowing onto the cooling fins of the controller is quite hot, and therefore how much of a cooling effect it has is a bit dubious. I intend to later move the controller away from radiator with its own cooling fan, just a 12v from computer of correct size should suffice, in a cool area.
Here is the where I bolted the controller on the shroud:


I ground a bit of an angle onto the bolt hole so that the controller would sit in the airflow and also helped left hand fan wire to reach without tension.

shows bolt to connect controller below


shows controller in position


shows air intake back in position, controller sits nicely in that spot without problem.