Whew - that was a close call

Tim M

PRESIDENT, Member # 015
GCC Member
Location
St. Charles
First Name
Tim
Last Name
Mauldin
Ok, so I take the car out for the evening and as I'm headed to visit Mom, sitting at a stop light, I see my water temp creeping up. Hmmmm, I'll wait until it hits 110 C before I worry, it hits that pretty quickly. I then realize my cooling fan isn't running. So, sitting at a stop light, I had to turn it off (at Baxter and Clarkson mind you) to wait for the light to turn so I can go and hopefully cool it down. I make it to Baxter and Clayton before I figure, ok, that's far enough, better see what the problem is. I find that sure enough the fan isn't coming on and I can't make it come on. Fuse - check, ok; Relay - check, find some arc marks on one pin of the relay. Get in touch with Scott and ask if he can bring a volt meter up. By the time he get's there, I figure out that if I wire past the relay, the fan works fine. So, off I go with one wire directly to a fuse box fuse (rule 1 - don't bypass electrical stuff, not much good usually comes of it) I visit Mom for a bit, start to head home and think, I better go over to a friend's house not far away and give this a better once over. When I get there, I pull out the relay and out comes one of the pin connectors :eek: I then look at the relay base, it is soft/gooey, the battery wire is hot, hot enough to soften the insulation. :confused: Ok, fan - good, wiring through relay - not good. So, I go to Autozone, by a toggle switch, hook up the fused side of the battery to the fan through the switch. Off/On - all ok. I cut out the relay base and see that it is all messed up. Come home toggling the switch off and on at the red lights. Check the wiring diagram, yep, that's how I hooked it up. So, I will check more in to it tomorrow, but at this point I'm THINKING a bad relay base.?! Still kind of sounds like a bad ground, that will be first thing I check when I can see under dash tomorrow. Lesson 1 - make sure GCC members cell numbers are programmed in to phone; Lesson 2 - Make sure nearby friend's phone number is programmed in to phone; Lesson 3 - buy cheapo volt/ohm/amp meter and stick in car; Lesson 4 - go ahead and add that full on switch for the fan. If I had not decided to go to my friend's house, I'm sure you would have been reading a much different and sad story right now. :D Thanks again Scott!
 
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Glad I could be there (really I didn't do anything other than provide some moral support).

Tim, I found the wiring diagram tonight in the manual for that relay:
30 - Fan
85 - Ground
86 - Switched +12V
87 - +12V

BTW - thanks for the loaner on the torque wrench. Got my bolts in the spindles...the UCA's are connected to the Spindles, the Spindles are connected to the...LCA's...okay everyone sign along...
 
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