My camaro just started overheating the other day. It seems the fan is not kicking on. The strange part is if i turn the AC on high the temp comes back down to normal. If i drive with the ac on at all times the car does not overheat. The only problem with this is the car wants to surge forward when i am at a stop light, and there is a drop in rpms. Anyone ever have this problem?

 

Fan switch would be my guess.

 

I had the surging @ a stop -- it was a bad TPS & a bad TPS ground. The fan sounds like a different problem. I'd say the temp sensor in the driver's head (I think) is probably bad or has a bad connection. On my 305 TBI, it's on the driver's head between the two front cylinders.

 

Thank you, i appreciate the replies i will look into this some more

 

Oh! Sorry...brain fart. The driver's head is for the temp gauge in the dash. The passenger's head has the switch for the fan.

 

Check the fan too. Don't just replace the sensor. There are charts on here for testing the temp sensor. The fan motors are cheap enough if that's what it is....

 

Andrew, do you have a single or dual fan?

 

single fan

 

Your radiator fan is controlled by two switches. The temp sensor on the passenger side head engages the fan by engine temperature. The A/C system also turns on the fan whenever the A/C is on. This is primarily to pull air through the condenser coils when stopped or driving slow. Otherwise the A/C would not work without air flow across the coils in front of the radiator.

If your fan is running with A/C on but not engaging when the engine overheats, your sensor or is likely bad or there is a loose, or broken, connection from the sensor to the fan relay.

 

Thank you, this is a big help. I could not figure out why the temp was going down if i left the ac on.

 

Because running the A/C kicks the fan on. If you don't want the A/C running all the time and just the fan,temporarily unhook the A/C plug .