1984 Camaro Z28, 5.0 HO, 4bbl carb.

My cooling fan stopped working after I threw my belt (alt and water pump) and potentially overheated the car. I used two jumper wires to check the fan itself and it did not work, so I purchased a new used fan. This one did work with the jumper. However, it does not come on when the engine gets hot like it used to.

I understand there is a cooling fan sending unit on the passenger side in the block, like the coolant temp sending unit (that I still haven't got working) on the driver side, but this is further back and buried under a bunch of wires and hoses.
Is there also a relay on the driver side firewall? I've heard from some yes, and some no. I was hoping to check things with easier access than dealing with the hard to reach sending unit.
I have attached a pic of where I have heard the relay may be, but don't know how to check for a bad relay.

 

I didnt realize 84 had an e fan. But the fan switch should be between culinders 6 and 8..the connector likely got brittle and crumbled.



the relay on at least newer models is located right to the side of the radiator on the passenger side core support area. Dual fans had a second relay by the firewall.

 

Yep, the VIN G models in '84 had electric cooling fan. That's where the E-fan in my '83 came from...

 

Fusable link might have blown if the bad fan shorted or pulled too much current.

 

That is correct. It has a single-pin round Weatherpak connector. Grn w wht stripe wire. Although, it's not really a "sending unit"; it's just a switch. Kind of nit-picky semantics butt it'll make a difference when you walk up to the parts counter and try to buy it.

It's "further back" in the sense that it's farther from the front of the engine. However, it's in the same hole in the casting that would hold the temp gauge SU in the driver's side head, if the heads were swapped.

As far as "buried", I don't find it to be particularly a problem. Tedious, maybe; butt either you want to fix it, or you don't. P&Ming about it here won't make it any "easier". Best to drop that line of mental bishop-buffing altogether and get on with it.

Yes there is. Plainly visible in your photo. It's the one closest to the brake booster, with the blue part # printed on it. It has 4 wires: big fat red which is battery feed, big fat blk w red stripe which goes to the fan, brown which is from the ignition circuit, and grn/wht which is the other end of the fan sw wire. It operates when the fan sw grounds the wire and there's 12V on the brown wire, and sends hard batt to the fan motor.

Not sure how that's "hard", butt, w/e. You can ground the grn/wht wire at the relay by sticking a wire or something into the connector cavity and grounding the other end, with the key On; the relay should click. There should be 12V on the red wire at all times, and when the relay clicks, there should also be 12V on the blk/red wire. The other end of the blk/red plugs into the fan motor so obviously the fan should run at that time. You can ground the center pin of the grn/wht wire at the connector end and of course all the same things should happen.

L69 cars did. In fact my 83 L69 has it. LG4 did not; not sure about LU5.

If there's no 12V at the fat red wire at the relay that you can see in your pic, this is the 1st thing I'd check. If there's 12V there the fusible link is probably OK.

 

Sofaking: you do get into semantics quite a bit (parking brake vs emergency brake ) and you are direct and to the point. I appreciate your brutal honesty, though at times my tail is tucked after reading your posts! I've attached pics to show what my engine bay looks like for getting to the cooling fan switch

Coolant temp sending unit is right there, just out of view

Spark plug wires, A/C thing, oil dipstick, etc

My son (17, much more of a mechanic than me) pointed out that there is a port in the intake manifold that could hold the switch. So instead of trying to get to the switch in the block, we mounted the switch up top, plugged it in, and voila, it worked.
Super stoked that the cooling issue are now handled. Of course, there are still more oil leaks than Exxon Valdez, but that is a different story.

 

I'm impressed with your son. Most kids his age are just playing video games...

 

All parents brag on their kids, but he really is impressive with his even and steady temperament and his self-control. He did his first engine swap on his own at 14-15, and his second at 17. He wants me to go to LKQ and pick out a 4.8L Vortec and go ahead and swap out the 305 currently in place.
I'm really gonna miss him next year.