Hello all. I have a 88' firebird 5.0 tbi. Yesterday i was driving home from work and noticed the fan was staying on during highway speeds. I pulled into my driveway and shut off the car... only to find the electric cooling fan still running? I am just starting to diagnose this problem. I have seen many threads that focus on the cooling fan NOT working. I havent found any pertaining the fan ALWAYS running. the only way i have got the fan to shut off is disconnecting the battery. i dont want a continous drain on my charging system, so any ideas or help would be greatly appreciated. RUSS

 

Unplug the fan relay. The fan should shut off, and is probably the problem. It should be on the drivers side firewall by the brake booster.

 

You can try this: http://www.austinthirdgen.org/index.php?pid=36

Hope this helps.
Lou

 

Hey guys thanks for the reply back so fast. I disconnected the relay then pluged it back in, and the fan did not turn on automatically when i connected the battery. ( hopefully it turns on at opperating temp) i will take it for a test drive. Once again thanks for the quick responses. -RUSS

 

The same thing happened to me and it was a bad relay.

 

Well i just returned from my test drive. It seems the relay is acting up. it works fine now, after i disconnected and re-connected it. I think it might have corroded. ( possibly from me not having a hood on the car at this time). Would some dielectric grease help when i install the new relay. (till i get my hood on in the near future hopefully). I have some front end damage the previous owner did to the car that keeps my hood off. Well to be clear i need to replace the front passenger headlight assembly, pass fender, upper core support, and windshield. ( i have the offset cowl induction hood off a formula and all intake pieces for it ). Once again thanks for the quick replies. -Russ

 

The problem is in the relay itself. If the terminals are corroded, you should go ahead and clean them.

 

Will do.

 

If the relay is sticking in the ON position, cleaning the terminals won't help. You'd have to open up the relay and clean the two contact plates. That can be done carefully with a small piece of sandpaper. But if the contacts are burnt too bad, sandpaper won't help.

A new relay is around $8 at the auto parts store, they should have plenty of them in stock.

Hope this helps.
Lou