I have a 1988 camaro and am having problems with it overheating.
It started when the first time it boiled over i had had the car for a few months, i filled her back up with water and it kept overheating untill i got rid of an air lock and then it ran fine for months untill last week when i let her run out of oil and the whole engine overheat, i filled it back up with oil and by the sheer skin of my teeth the engine turned over and nothing was damaged but now my colling problem is back.
I temp wired the fan to the battery and took her for a run today and all was fine utill it drained the battery and the engine cut out after a 10 mile drive .
So i am no mechanic but it is must be the fan switch ir an air lock......
Can i get some advise please

 

engine size/type?

 

As stated above, we are going to need some more information in order to help you. Is it a TBI, TPI, or carbed car? 4,6, or 8 cylinder? Clutch fan (connected to waterpump pulley), or electric fan?
Why did you run out of oil? Is there a massive oil leak, or could it be an internal oil leak? If you pull the dipstick, does it look like oil on the stick, or does it look like a milkshake? (that would indicate blown head gasket)

Do you have the little chin-spoiler (air dam) under the radiator support, for pushing the air up into the radiator while moving?

When the car heats up, does the fan come on, if it is electric? Did you put a mix of 50-50 antifreeze/water back in?

 

I see your already getting help from some experienced people so I just want to say that if you have to run the secondary fan manually without applying 12 volts to it which you may accidentally ground out while trying to do so, just take the wire coming off the fan switch itself and ground it. Then turn the ignition switch on (you do not have to start the engine just turn the key to on) and the fan should go on. This is how the fan switch works in the first place. Now the fan will be on all the time when the engine is running. This is only a temporary fix, you should find and fix the real problem.

Good Luck Buddy!

 

First of all, I would like to apologize for seemingly not to have fully read your post, before replying to it. You did state that you temporarily hard-wired the fan to the battery. I did this once in a pinch, when my fan relay died on me. And I too, killed my battery. But that was a good excuse to spend the bucks and get a red-top.

Those fan switches (and the relays that control them), are anything but reliable. I recently purchased a new 185º switch that would turn the fan on, but would not turn it back off. The only way to get the fan to shut off, was to turn engine off and then back on...weird.

But anyway, the stock fan switches are set to come on waay too late. I would take Bobby88's advise and just ground out the wire going to the switch for now. Then, if you are feelin froggy, maybe attempt to make the (very easy) manual fan switch. I used a factory fog light switch for mine. It looks OE, and unless you know about 3rd gen birds, you might never even realize what it is