Ok here is my issue, i have an electric cooling fan on my 87 2.8L last night it rained here and i was driving home in it, when i returned, i noticed the engine was overheating, the fan stopped running, so this morning i bypassed everything and hooked the fan straight to the battery and it ran just fine, so i know it is not the fan motor, also checked the fuses and all are good there, here is the catch, the previous owner hooked the fan up so that when you turn the key to acc the fan comes on, so it is always on until i shut the motor off. it is hooked into some sort of large relay on the passenger side by the battery and wrapped around (spliced) one of the wires to the fan. i have included pictures, and if anyone could tell me what that relay is called thank you very much.

 

Thats a relay of some sort for sure

Since the fan has been bypassed to come on with the IGN, sorting it shouldnt be hard

Most commonly the fusible link supplying the main power to the relay blows killing fan function

Test for voltage on the orange wire. No voltage = bad link
Fusible links are located on the starter and/or the power distribution block near the battery

 

That looks like the fan relay. However, the pictures are too small to tell the wire colors or analyze the splicing job. If you could provide bigger pictures, it would help a lot.
Or if you can tell us which wires are spliced where.

In the meantime, this troubleshooting article might be of help: http://www.austinthirdgen.org/index.php?pid=36

Lou

 

the wire that has been spliced into is a black wire with a red stripe. there is voltage to the orange wire with a black stripe that is going into the relay. and when i turn the key to acc the relay itself clicks so i believe the relay to be goodand the two original fan wires just go into a wiring harness and dissapear, the wiring diagram dosent help it just says that the wire goes into a coolant fan relay, which i have no idea where it is.

 

ok i found the relay for the fan and it is destroyed, it looks rusted and melted it has been this way for awhile, perhaps the reason for the bypass i have included pictures and also the connector is all messed up wires just twisted togother and wrapped in elec. tape i am going to replace the relay and connector and fix the wiring and see if it helps.

 

here is the relayhere is the wiring