jensen77

Whats up people. Ive been reading and searching for a few hours not, but I figured I would post up my problem and hopefully I can get some suggestions, opinions and hopefully some solutions.

I have a 1997 accord, automatic, 4 cylinder non-vtec.

The other day when I got off of the freeway, I noticed my temps starting to rise above halfway while I was sitting at the stop light. Once I started to move, the temps came back down. Then again when I was at stop light temps started to rise, then came back down while driving.

When I got home, I let the car cool off and I checked the coolant levels in my radiator and overflow. The overflow was empty and the radiator was low. I topped off the overflow and radiator and went for a drive. Again, everything happened with the overheating at the stop light, and cooling down once I start driving.

I notice only one of my fans would run when the car got hot, it was the driver side. After a few minutes, it would turn off....then turn on again. When I turn on the AC, the driver side fan turns on. THe passenger side fan doesn't seem to come no matter what. With the AC on it doesn't spin, when the car gets hot, it doesn't spin. I know for a fact that the fan works, because I hot wired it, and it turned on. Any reason or explanation? Where would the relay/fuse be for the passenger side fan?

Im pretty sure waterpump is good, headgasket is good and the thermostat is good.

holmesnmanny

Replace the fan switch/coolant temp switch on the thermostat housing. If you absolutely need to drive the car, when the temp rises you can turn on the heater to full blast to help cool the coolant and turn the ac on to turn the ac fan on since the passengers side won't work til the switch is replaced.

jensen77

Thanks for the suggestion! I feel so dumb right now. First thing I checked was the fuses that was in the car and everything checked out fine. I totally forgot about checking the fuses in the engine compartment. Sure enough, cooling fan fuse was popped. I replaced it and now everything seems fine. With the AC on, both fans spin. The bonus, is that my AC gets cold very fast now, as compared to before where it would get "cool" once I start driving and air starts passing over the condesor and radiator. Again thanks very much for taking the time to read this post.

holmesnmanny

Fuses don't blow on their own. In fact, this is the first time I've ever heard of a cooling fan fuse blowing. Be that as it may, at some point you're going to need to find out why it blew.

jensen77

Well checking back again. New problem, the cooling fan fuse in the engine bay keeps blowing.

Car started run a lil warm and I noticed I was missing radiator fluid, so first thing I checked was the cooling fan fuse. It was blown. So I replaced it and when I turned on the ac (both fans kick on when I do this), it blew immediately.

Anyone have any ideas on where to start?

poorman212

Fan motors.....Check/test them...yes they spin but is one drawing too much.

jensen77

poorman - thanks, I think that is the case. Even when I go up in larger fuse size, it still pops pretty fast. For the time being, since no store carries a fan replacement, I might just run a cheapey puller in its place....and see if that fixes the fuse popping issue.

Also, I think I might have a slight headgasket leak also. I notice that every other day or so, I have to refill my radiator with water/coolant. It is not being sucked back into the radiator from the coolant reservoir. Im going to replace the fan and radiator cap, and make sure my cooling system is running 100% before I come to the bad headgasket conclusion. As you can see, I am trying to avoid the "might" be problem, lol.

jensen77

What I am hoping is that since my radiator fan is not coming on, it makes the car run hotter, thus pushing more coolant out in the reservoir. And hopefully since my radiator cap is bad, it is not allowing the coolant to be sucked back into the radiator, which is why I have to manually top off the coolant levels in my radiator.