The camaro died twice today...tested the alternator and battery to be working fine...then I tracked the problem to my engine fan. The previous owner did a fantastic job of making most of the car's wiring unrecognizable and thus I resulted to wire a manual fan switch. I have had this manual setup for about 6 months now and haven't caused any problems till now.

I have a basic setup. Fan is powered by acc wire-hooked up to a toggle switch and powers a small led when the switch is off. Theres also a 30a inline fuse.

My novice diagnostic is that the fan may be dying because the volt meter on the dash will visibily drop when the toggle is switched. When testing the acc wire, it reads around 12v but when the fan is switched, it drops to around 8.

It seems to me that I just need a new fan as though this setup has given me no problems for 6 months, but do other thirdgen experts disagree?

 

sounds like a weak altanator car running u should have about13.5 volts if the car is not running abou12to 12.5volts in that case ur battery is bad. u have a charging issue. ur not pulling more than 30 amps or ur fuse would be blown

 

like i said though I got the battery fully tested- i actually used another battery to make sure that wasn't bad-then got the alternator tested too and it was fine=alt is only a year old.

 

I just tried it with a different fan and it's having the same problem....that eliminates it to just about everything but maybe a loose wire? i've checked but I'll check again...is a 30a fuse too much? it never seemed to give me problems be4 but who knows....

 

u can buy the pig tail plug 4 the alt at parts store i had that same problem turned out to be the plug not makin a good contact

 

Personally, I think I'd use a relay with that toggle switch setup

 

alright I fixed the problem so I thought I'd just post in case someone else has the same problem... It ended up having nothing to do with the electric fan.

I ended up trying a new fan from the junk yard to see if my current one was pulling too much power but it was a no go. same thing kept happening.
I ended up switching the fan off to eliminate the possibility and it kept dying regardless.

I tested the leads on the alternator and the two that connect on the top checked out fine voltage wise but the back connection that's supposed to have about 13-14 volts was only putting out about 2 or 3. That led the problem to be a fusable link somewhere or wiring. I ended up finding a grounding module that I had the dealership replace about a year ago (when I was young and stupid) and I pulled it out, cleaned it and replaced it and the car worked! before then I had checked and all of my fuseable links were fine so that was the very last thing to check.

Thanks for the advice guys, just had to figure this one out myself i guess. - I did also try a new plug for the alternator but after i got it working I put my old one back on and it still worked fine.(so I returned the new one)

 

Glad ya got it and, thanks for letting us know.

 

You need to use a relay, that's too much current for the switch and too much wire. Just use the switch to switch the relay. Run a heavy duty connection from the battery to the relay and from the relay to the fan, that way you won't be trying to supply so much current from the ACC wiring. You're likely to burn your ignition switch out.

 

This is what I was trying to say too. That's two votes for a relay now.

 

When I got my car over a month ago, the guy that had it before wired up the electric fan to run all the time but it only came on when the car was at like 220 but it was too late then the car would hit 260 in a heartbeat. So I disconnected the relay from wiring for the fan, which they had wired up to bypass it turning on and off, so I took the relay off and taped up the bypass wire so it wouldn't come loose.

So now it runs all the time and I have no problems with the ignition or the car heating up. I was told that it was stupid to do that but I would rather burn up my fan motor than all of a sudden have the car overheat and mess something up real bad. Those fan motors are pretty cheap. Just my

 

ya ik, I always thought I should but never got around to adding one in. I did use some pretty heavy guage wiring and made sure the switch was atleast 25 amps i think? I kinda have it wired up a little different than most might have it. I have a 3 way switch that will turn the fan on in one direction and turn a 12v led that i have wired up (in the stock location for the hatch indicator i believe?) in the other direction. That way if a turn the fan off, I'll be reminded with the bright led.

Now I'll go search for adding that relay in there but does anyone off hand what size and where exactly i should add in that relay? thx guys

 

You would use a SPDT(single pole double throw) relay. 30amp. Here are a couple of them in the links below. This is the cheapest place I know of to get them. Also get the prewired socket. It's cheap and easy. You could use a SPST (single pole single throw) relay as well but, I didn't see any at parts express. It doesn't matter. The only difference is on the SPDT there is one terminal you won't use. You can probably get them locally but, they will cost a little more. The socket is worth it to me. Otherwise you have to wire 4 separate wires to female connectors. Kind of an inconvenience but, can be done. I'd just fine a convenient out of the way place under the hood to put the relay. This allows your heavy gauge wire to be a shorter run. You can use a smaller gauge from the toggle to the relay. Put a fuse close to the battery too. 20 amp should be fine. Here is their fuse holder
http://www.parts-express.com/pe/show...TOKEN=10952241

Relays
http://www.parts-express.com/pe/show...number=330-073

http://www.parts-express.com/pe/show...number=330-070

The socket
http://www.parts-express.com/pe/show...TOKEN=10952241