Sunbeam Alpine: Fitting Twin Electric Fans and Twin Relays

The original mechanical fan in an Alpine is barely adequate to cool the car on a hot day. With modern petrol burning hotter and roads more congested than ever, fitting electric fans is a good improvement. This video shows how to fit twin electric fans and twin relays (to give redundancy in the event of a unit failing) and details the wiring diagram to follow. We also test sucker and blower fans. If you don't want to fabricate mountings like this yourself, specialists like Alpine Innovations can sell you complete twin fan and relay kits that contain all that you need. The videos on the Sunbeam Alpine Channel show what we do to our own cars, there may be different or better ways of doing these jobs, the videos simply show how WE do them. We hope that you find them useful.

[peterjlindley]

A very helpful video. When I get to the cooling part of the restoration I will be adding a twin electric fan system.

[htalp]

I was able to place the two 10" Derale fans inside the engine bay by cutting away a few inches of the protecting tines surrounding the blades. I am not sure if this is necessary for a stock radiator; mine is aftermarket aluminum and about 1/2" thicker than stock. I must confess that I prefer the look of a clean radiator in the front of the car over the fans. I live in Arizona, where temperatures regularly exceed 100F. My car now runs consistently at 100C, except in the hottest temps, when it will reach 115C. My fans are setup with thermostat activation and a manual override. The fan thermostat resides in that large hole on the port face of the head that is typically plugged with a large bolt. I blocked off the oil cooler pass thru on one side and on the other, I blocked it off by fabricating and installing a cold air intake box, similar to your setup, for the Weber 36/36 I installed. Not sure how much HP is gained by the cold air intake and removal of stock fan, but the car feels peppier.

[stanleypro]

was blower preferred to sucker purely because of space restriction behind the radiator for a twin fan setup?

[carsonw]

Yes I need this. My all original '67 Alpine is always threatening to overheat if I have to wait through a few lights in a row using 89octane non ethanol. I turn the engine off sometimes when i catch a red light. It's my biggest issue with the car.