Fan not working? Suspect the trannies? Ready to dismantle the whole motor/drill out old trannies/buy and bolt in new/fit it all back together and it STILL dont work? Are you sitting comfortably? then listen to this:
My 2.0 16v estate developed intermittent fan, then dead fan (painful). Having read all the accounts of tranny woes on this (and another) forum I jumped to the conclusion that it was them little discs. So bend the ageing back, lift them tools, get a little crick and land up with a motor in hand and a couple of rusty trannies on it.
Read Noz's brilliant account of how he sorted his and thought: STOP, go no further, get them trannies tested and checked.
But - how the hell do you do that? Paid a visit to a good friend who has a diode tester on his multimeter - trannies checked out fine, as did the brushes. Fitted my duff fan to his car and - shit - it worked fine. Odd thing though: on his red and black wiring there was an extra thin black wire which connected into a green wire -never did discover what this was for but it made my motor work on his car.
So: borrowed his spare red and black wire set with the extra thin wire, went home.
Thinks: what do now? (this took a long time)
Tried the motor with his red and black set - no joy, because nowhere to connect the extra thin black wire to.
Thinks again (this took even longer).
Decided that it must be the wiring on my car. Went to the fuse box under the bonnet and - b*gg*r me - there was F2 burnt out. Replaced it and BINGO! fan works.
Odd though: first, it only works when the engine is running, not when the ignition is switched on and before I operate the starter; and second, it wont switch completely off even with the slider control fully to the left. Thinks: the extra thin black wire on his red and black set must connect back to his ignition switch? the fan is never completely off on my car? Who knows ...
MORAL: NEVER NEGLECT THE OBVIOUS and leave them trannies alone until you have checked everything else.
Hope this helps someone else.
Slainte!
Wendham

Hi Wendham

Sorry to hear of your plight, but you will know another time! I had exactly the same problem with my 2.1 td estate, which I thought I had put on here (or perhaps it was another forum-sorry!) only on mine the fuse hadn't actually gone but was corroded and had been getting very hot, but had eventually ceased making contact. This arrangement of the fan only working with the engine running had me fooled, on my previous car the motor failed, only that time it was the transistors, but when I refitted it, no go, I wasted a considerable ammount of time trying to find out why and wondered if the battery was going flat, I turned the key, the engine started and the fan, which was lying on the floor with the wiring attached, started leaping about all over the place! that was how I found out that it only works with the engine running! I can only assume that this design is to prevent you running the battery flat with only the ignition turned on.

Peter.N.

Peter, so 2.1s and 2.016vs are the same. So whats the difference with the 2.5 belonging to my friend where it worked without the engine running? Mystery...