It may be a case of a connector getting dodgy. Unplug the sensor with and give it a good clean with contact cleaner. See how that goes.
It is only one nut on the viscous coupling to remove the fan from the engine to inspect it. I highly recommend you do it that way, you will be amazed at what you can see when you get it in the right light.
Your call however, your car.
Take the fan off and closely look at all of the blade roots. Any cracks here renders the fan US. I acquired a fan S/H a while back and when looking as it closely, every blade had a crack in it.
Interesting how some vehicles respond on this issue. I had a VW Amarok and with the trailer on, there was little noticeable difference in performance, it handled it very well, however, it totally destroyed fuel economy, cutting it by almost 50%.
The issue is that an electric fan, no matter how good, will never shift the volume of air the standard one will, with the exception of very low revs/idle.
The standard fan takes a few hp to drive when the car is working, I have seen estimates of over 5hp. About the best electric fan will only ever be good for is something in the range of 600W and that would be drawing 50A.
The ECU learns your driving habits over time and adjusts accordingly. I always leave mine in sport mode when towing. As noted, they aren’t the most powerful or torquey vehicle for towing with. Better than a 4 cyl Landrover though!
I remember as a young fellow towing a boat behind my Landrover, flat straight road, but a gale force head wind, and being in third gear for over an hour when driving straight into it as the old girl wouldn’t pull top.
Reference the comment on aerodynamics.
Mine took out anything with oil in it, so the transmission cooler hoses, engine oil cooler hoses, power steering reservoir. It didn’t touch anything with water in it, however for good measure it shredded the under bonnet mat (found a NOS one), bent the bonnet (found a S/H one and painted it to match), destroyed the fan shroud (S/H one again) took the side out of the battery box, but left the battery intact (S/H one again). Spent a day under the car with soap and a pressure washer trying to get rid of all of the oil.
Had a S/H fan so checked it out, and yes, on close inspection cracked blade roots.
New viscous coupling. A common misconception is that these should lock up when hot. They should NEVER lock up, just slip less when hot. If locked, and the engine is revving hard, the fans will explode as the rim speed is around 12,000m/min or around 700km/h,
Also, to add to the above, check that none of your duct work has become disconnected, or the seals on the duct work disintegrated. I improved mine by spending a couple of hours under the dash with a roll of duct tape sealing up vent joints and found one joint that had come apart.
Yep on all the above.
However ......
We build what we claim is the world's best 4x4, but make it impossible to field service. Ah well, best on the forecourt perhaps.
I guess it is related to market size. In OZ, every second servo carried LPG, but then it has been a standard fuel here for 50 years. Until Ford and GM stopped building cars here (5 years ago) they offered LPG only models. Pretty much every taxi in the country runs on LPG.
I slit a piece of heater hose, slipped it over each pipe to provide abrasion resistance, and re-mounted them to the lugs with zip ties.
Got given another P38. This time a 1995 (MA) 4.6HSE that last ran in 2012. All the radiator hoses have been cut off and the two rear side windows broken thanks to a kid with an air gun. Apart from that, complete and not in bad nick.
Pulled the bumper off and put it on my truck as it was in a bit better nick, salvaged and swapped the switch pack into P38 #2 (the last one I was given which is a daily driver for my brother) as the handbrake boot was still on it. The roof lining will be the next job, the new truck has a perfect roof lining so it will be out and into #2. Also salvaged the new spare tyre and put it into #2.
Put a battery in it, turned it on, no sound from the fuel pump (hardly surprising after 10 years in the weather), engine cranks, put the nano on it, no engine faults and most surprisingly of all, no hevac faults.
Something else to play with and salvage a few parts from. I have a thought of pulling the engine and going through it as a project seeing as parts are pretty cheap.
…. Or prop it with a broom handle or similar.
Prop the bonnet up with a broom or similar, or get a mate to hold it. Then disconnect the washer pipe from its clip (or you will break the one way valve). next disconnect the top of the gas struts (the bonnet becomes very heavy at this point. With one of you on each side slowly lift it to the vertical position and move the clips around until the snap over the little pegs. They might take some moving to start with if this hasn't been done in a long time.
Pipe is the EGR.
Out of interest, disconnect the alternator whilst it is sitting and see if that makes a difference. It could be the rectifier in the alternator on the way out, allowing some current back draw when not running.
Isn’t is strange. The other day I get the LH tail light bulb failure warning. Never needed to replace that bulbs, so probably time. Checked, and yes, the bulb is blown. Replaced, all good.
The very next day the message centre tells me that the RH tail light bulb is blown, which it is! Two in two days. I guess you could say that the manufacturing tolerances were spot on, if nothing else.
Well, my adventure is quite tame then! New rear discs, pads and slide pins to cure a sized caliper, which had resulted in metal to metal on the LH rear disc.
Torque for a Disco II pitman arm.
177 ft lb, or 240 Nm