Hey All,
New guy here. I just picked up a 1989 Camaro RS with the 2.8L V6. Got it cheap knowing that it would need some work done to it. Haven't had a Camaro in YEARS so I'm pretty excited! Anyways... here's my Q...

I did some searching on the forum but I haven't found an exact answer yet. There are three relays on the firewall very close to the driver's side fender. I spent a good part of the weekend debugging a non-functional radiator fan. Got it fixed and with a lot of help from this website! Problem ended up being the fuseable link in the power lead to the fan relay. So I now know that the middle relay is for the cooling fan... but what are the other two specifically?

I am trying to debug what appears to be a wiring patch / blunder by a previous owner. This is going to be kind of hard to explain. No clue what the reason or reasoning was behind this but they ran a jumper wire between one of the wires going to the vapor canister to one of the wires going to the relay farthest toward the passenger side (of that cluster of three relays). Hope that made sense.

Strangely... with this jumper in place the car will start and run but will not shut off with the key! I finally cut the jumper and now it shuts off with the key (back to normal) except the car doesn't seem to run as good and the Engine light comes on on the dash.

I don't have a full wiring diagram yet and I'm "electrically challenged" to begin with... but I figure a good place to start is to at least figure out exactly which relay is for what.

Sure do appreciate any input!!
Thanks,
Adam

 

Off hand I am not sure, you can check a service manual and the wire color code.

Fan, A/C?, ??

 

Okay... I'm searching... I think I might be getting somewhere. A lot of posts refer to these three relays but I'm still not sure which relay is to what. So far I have.... AC relay, engine fan relay, and fuel pump relay? (I thought the fuel pump relay was up by the battery but that shows what I know)! My guess is to just unplug a relay and see if I lose the fuel pump to find out which one is the fuel pump relay. Any reason NOT to do this? I don't want to create any more problems to have to figure out.

 

The three, looking from the front of the car back are:

1. Front most is Fuel Pump relay
2. Realy on right is A/C relay (same relay as FP
3. Left relay ....dont remember, but in either Haynes &/or Service manual. At work now, so caint look it up.

edit: #1 is correct, let me refrence tech data for the other two. Don't want any misinformation now

1. Front most is fuel pump relay
2. Engine coolant fan relay ( same as fp relay)
3. A/C compressor relay ( the hidden relay)

 

on my 91 bird the far left relay is the fan relay, I've replaced that and I still dont' have an operational fan. I need to check that fusable link, can you tell me where you found it at?

thanks

 

Ahhh... that fuseable link was a TRICKY little bugger! On my Camaro it was right up there by the battery. (Look for one of three thicker gauge red wires). The fuseable link was orange. My car has been "messed around with a bit" (I didn't do it) and those three wires were attached to the pigtail off of the positive battery lead. I don't know what they are supposed to attach to "stock".

I tried carefully poking through the wire insulation to see if I was getting any current, using a continuity tester. That didn't work so great so I ended up just cutting off the fueable link. (Just made a little picture- see attachment). I was getting continuity from "A" to "B"... but not from "A" to "C". Guess it must have melted right there inside the small plastic part. There was NO VISIBLE SIGN AT ALL that anything was wrong!

I'm no electrical whiz... I installed a 30 amp blade type fuse in place of the fuseable link (the fuseable link was a 20). BUT I should add that I am not driving this car daily so I figured if it starts popping a lot I'd go get a real fuseable link.

Hope this helps and made sense!

 

Yep, I think that I know where that one is located. I did not know that it went to the fan though. It disappears into a bundle that I haven't really followed back yet. I'll check that when I get back into port next week or so.

thanks for the great information.