My fan in my 86 TPI went up in smoke last night. When I open the hood, I could smell it burning and sure enough there was a brownish gray smoke coming out of it. It was then that I noticed that my MAF was unplugged. A freind and me were tightening the belts and he forgot to plug it back in. The SES light did come on but I figured that I could at least make it home without too much damage, considering that the stupid thing comes on quite often.
Anywoo, my question is if the MAF being unplugged would cause this to happen? Also are there any other parts that I should change when I replace the fan motor, like maybe the fan relay?
Thanks in advance!

 

No connection at all between the MAF sensor being unplugged and the fan motor taking a nose dive. It is a good idea to replace the fan relay regularly as they take a beating when the cooling fan cycles on and off.

 

sounds like a cowinkedink

 

Allright, I just changed out the fan motor and relay and I still have no fan. The only other thing I can think of is changing out the temp sensor, but since the fan burn't up, I wouldn't think that is what it would be.
Any help on tracking down the problem would be greatly appreciated! I got to get this thing runnin right within the next few days!

 

Checked the fuses yet. A fuse link feed 12 volts to the heavy wires on the relay, an in panel fuse feed the coil side of the relay. Pull the relay plug and use a voltmeter. One of the heavier wires should have 12 volts, if not the fuse link went.

 

Check to see if the fan is getting power and see if the relay is getting power, jumper the fan and check it by hand, then you will know if it's a fan motor or relay.

 

Its fixed! Found out the fan was hitting the shroud and popping the fuse. Problem was caused by a badly positioned jack Anyways, its all better now and an expensive lesson was learned about jack points.

 

and here i am using the front crossmember all this time

 

Im experiencing the same problems but all this electrical talk has me lost. What is a jack? "jumper the fan" ??? Shroud ?

also where is this inline fuse located?

Thanx

 

The fuse is located under the drivers side dash. And jumpering is bypassing a circuit with a piece fo wire.

 

The relay rarely goes bad. Have delt with lots of 3rd gen fan problems. I have seen the most problems in the formulas with dual fan setup for some reason.

 

My motor also went up in smoke. I cut the wires ran them to the battery to test the motor and it worked. But it started smoking. So that led me to believe it was bad. I dont believe 12v it to much to fry a fan motor. But I need to figure out why it wouldnt switch on. What are the possibilities? And the odds? I just dont know. I priced a fan motor at NAPA and it was a little over $30 so thats not bad.

 

With all due respect the fan relays are the primary source of problems. The original version used a long contact arm and after very little use the contact arm would warp causing contact misalig
nment and intermittent operation. I actually took a new relay and using a simple latch circuit cycled it only several hundred times using average current draw, not even peak current as the fans draw when they start. The result was that after less than 300 cycles the relay became intermittent. If you open the older version and then open a new one you will see the relay is completely redesigned. The arm is shorter and slightly heavier to handle more current preventing the spring steel from warping. Additionally when the contact develops resistance the plug connector will heat up sometimes to the point of melting the area around the contact. Similiar problems with the MAF power and burnoff can also be traced to these particular relays since they are the same units.

 

Your quote is very impressive and I am glad you seem to have this intimate knowlege of relays. I am speaking from experience and knowlege. I own a machine shop. I work on firebirds and trans ams all day long. I do top ends: head work, porting etc. as well as build drag cars and have wired many electrical systems, so please be careful how u respond on these boards. Believe it or not experience speaks louder than being book smart. What I put on here are my experiences as well as my employees and is what happens in real life, not on the internet or in a book.