[davew833]

So my mom's '94 Chrysler Lebaron has had warm-weather overheating issues lately which I finally solved by adding an extra 12" 'pusher' fan on the front of the condenser to augment the woefully inadequate SINGLE electric cooling fan on the other side. At the moment, the additional fan is wired to a heavy- gauge cord (think 120v lamp cord) with a fuse-protected cigarette lighter plug which plugs into the lighter. The plug and the first few inches of the cord get fairly warm, but the fuse is holding fine.

Of course the whole system is shoddy- looking and unswitched... I have to remember to unplug the fans or... dead battery. I'm fine with the fans not coming on automatically so I'll have them on a switch, but I'm planning to put them on a switched circuit controlled by the ignition key if I can find one to tap into. A fuse, of course, is a "must", but should I put a relay in the circut somewhere? What does a relay really accomplish?