Hi Guys
I just traded a vehicle I was selling for a '88 2.8 mpfi V6 (the red one in the sig).
The dipstick I got it from had wired the fan on a switch, but also hooked up the radio to the same switch. His explanation was "you know the fan is on when the radio is playing". So now I either have to drive around with the fans running all the time, or not have the radio playing till it starts getting hot.

From first glance, he has run power direct from the battery to the switch, then back down the the fan (single fan BTW). What I want to do is, run the fan and radio off a 'switched' power source, seperately of course!.
What is the best approach to this, is there anywhere around the steering column I can 'tap' into for a power source that will be killed when I turn the ign switch off?.
Also, is it wise to just run power directly to the fan, or should I run it to a relay?.

My only experience with 'hot wiring' fans is on my '94 firebird whereby I tapped into the computer wiring which uses a grounding system for a manual switch.
Any help would be apperciated.

Thanks
Sara Lou

 

I use a 30A in-line fuse in my fan wiring (think amplifier) just to be safe. Wouldn't be hard to cut the power line and wire it in. As for the radio, I would pull it out and look to see if he left any of the factory wiring in there, even when a butcher gets to the radio they leave their mess coiled up in there somewhere. To figure out what has power, strip the wires and use a testing light or multimeter to see what is getting power, then re-wire accordingly. As for a power source by the steering column, there should be plenty down there, but remember that if you don't have both switched and constant power you will lose your clock and presets everytime you turn off the car (or the opposite, you're radio would never turn off all the way).

 

I'd rewire it with an inline fuse, a relay, and a grounding switch, something like this '85 T/A diagram.

For the radio, orange wires are constant power from the 20A ctsy fuse, brown is the lighting circuit (20A tail fuse), and yellow is switched power from the 10A radio fuse.

 

Thanks for all the info guys, especially concerning the radio wire colours.

I've done a bit of researching around various places, and it seems 3rd gens can be hooked up in a similar way to how I did my 4th gen Formula, by grounding the relay, which is a much preferable way than running power direct to the fan.

From what i've seen under the hood of the Camaro, the factory setup is still intact, so it should just be a simple case of grounding the relay via a switch.

I've spent the last 3 days building a carport so I have somewhere to work on the cars (out of the 100* florida sun), which should be all done and sealed by tomorrow, then hopefully, I can get started digging into the Camaro and get the radio and fan setup sorted out this weekend.

Sara Lou

 

This is a huge problem with buying any used car. When I got my GTA it had a mess of electrical problems. All were caused by people that had no clue what they were doing. I found things held together with wire nuts under the dash. I pulled the raido and found a rats nest.

Phil

 

Well, seems I was wrong about the factory harness being intact. The previous owner had cut the red/black wire at the fan and hooked up his mayhem to that.

I disconnected his handy work and re-connected the factory setup, but I got no power on the red "hot at all times" wire at the relay. Looks like the 'fuseable link' is bad, I bypassed it to try the 'grounding the relay' method and everything worked ok. So now I gotta wire in a fused power line to the relay, then hook up the ground to the switch.

Tomorrow I get to enjoy seeing his handywork behind the radio!!!! .

Sara Lou

 

Well I got the fan wired up with the switch working on the 'ground' side, I just need to add an in-line fuse to the relay power source to finish up. I was pleasantly suprised to find the factory fan control still works (all be it way to hot turn on settings for my liking).

As for the radio....... I should go back to the guy I got this car from and stick my .45 up his *** and pull the trigger!!!!. He had butchered the harness beyond recognition, but I managed to get the radio working ok with what I had to work with.

Sara Lou