you guys are cracking me up thanks haha...ok this is the email I got back from the engineer after explaining what happened.

Hello Tim,

From your pics it does appear the motor has seized which is shorting out the wire and blowing the fuse. Don't get to see this kind of failure very often. What fuse blew, the one in the fuse box and what was the fuse value? I would have thought the fuse would have provided better protection from the short. There are many factors which could have caused this failure and I doubt I can pinpoint the exact cause. Any obstruction to the fan could cause this failure. I did notice from what little of the fan I saw that it was dirty. You need to keep the debris off the fan so it doesn't change the balance of the blade and create extra mass to spin. An unbalanced blade/motor can create many problems such as rubbing on the shroud which could lead to this type of failure. Look and see if you notice and rubbing on the fan shroud/housing. Heat could also create a problem if the internal parts melted inside creating a short. Another issue could be over or under voltage/current problems. Does the motor still spin or is it locked up? My guess is that the motor is locked. Did you install the cutoff switch for when you go in the water crossings? I was worried about this problem and thought that was what was causing the stock fan failures. Given this failure you might want to use a new fan relay harness and stop using the stock setup as this might be the cause for all you fan failures. I think I sent you a diagram for the cutoff switch and we might need to do a different one getting power directly from the battery.


Lou's idea has me thinking the rad mounted back on the roll bars might look cool and would mostly keep my fan dry would make for some REALLY long rad hoses though hahah....I'm getting a spare from the dealer up here in NJ in the am...

I have to say my jeep ran about 10 degrees cooler on highway with the winch mounted down low