roc steady

I'm very brand new to this whole forum thing, rarely ever get into it... but hoping to be doing some new work to my car and share my knowledge with folks. However, I need some help!

I have a 93 Civic EG hatch with just a reg single cam d16 non vtec (with a 95 si on the way)..
About two months ago, a guy ran a stop sign into me and fucked my **** up. He fixed it for me in exchange for me not calling the police. Why I agreed to this is beyond me.

Since I got the car back, I have been finding issues. The grounds were not very well attatched and I used to have one dim headlight and one bright headlight. Fixed that.

But now, sometimes my radiator fan does not turn on when idling, or ever. I thought perhaps my thermostat was bad.. so I changed that.. with no results. I hardwired the battery to the fan to see if the fan was at fault, negative. The fan turns on when connected directly to the battery. SO I checked the relay in the fuse box.. looks good... and as far as I know, the sensor above the thermostat housing is good. The car operates at "normal" temp for a while when it's cool, then (driving it like an *******) it heats up so much as to almost red... sometimes even over heating.

I do have AC and the fan turns on and produces just fine, minus the belt needs changing. Screeeeeeeeeeeeeeech.

I do not have a multimeter. I am assuming the problem is electrical and tied to my passenger side blinker that no longer illuminates and when I turn it on inside the car, it rapid fires (click-click-click instead of click......click.......click). The driver side blinker is fine.

In case I am wrong, I bought a water pump and timing belt to go the long haul.. but if it's not neccesary.. I need some advice.

Please, help.
I'm not trying to be a "n00b" poster, but I do gotta start somewhere.

Syndacate

Alright, first thing's first, your thermostat is not related to your fan turning on in ANY WAY, SHAPE, OR FORM, so it wouldn't have fixed it. This is a common misconception.

The only time the thermostat comes into play is when it opens up (it's closed while the engine is warming up so the coolant heats up) to allow the coolant to flow throughout the entire system including the radiator.

Now, the thing that kicks the radiator fan on is the ECT sensor (electronic coolant temperature). It's located on the block by one of the rad hoses, it's a thin pointy lil thing with a thermometer tip. When your coolant gets to a certain temp, it kicks on the fan to move air accross the radiator and cool your coolant.

With that said, one of three things is most likely for the fan not kicking on.
A) The fan motor is broken, you can test this by jumping the plug of the fan to the battery terminals, if it works, the fan should spin when you connect the wires.
B) The ECT sensor is bad (you might throw a check engine light if this is the case, but not always).
C) Power wiring to the ECT or Radiator fan is bad.

It shouldn't heat up when you're "driving like an *******" because air should be moving across the radiator, cooling your coolant. So if it's heating up while driving, there's a blockage in your coolant system, while driving your fan shouldn't need to kick on.

Did he replace the radiator?

A fast blinking blinker is a signal that there's more resistance than there should be. This is usually caused right before a bulb blows - it's designed that way so you have some "notification" when your bulb is about to blow out.

So if it was blinking fast before, and now it doesn't work, change the bulb, see where you're at.

If it still doesn't work, than it's most likely wiring damage in that area of the headlight.

Changing your water pump is always good maintenance, but should be done so in cognizance with the timing belt and timing belt tensioner. That is unless it wasn't JUST changed. Though don't replace the timing belt w/o also changing the tensioner.

If your water pump went bad, your car would warm up, and just continue to keep warming up until it over heated - it wouldn't stop towards hot, and it wouldn't matter how you're driving, so I doubt that's your issue.

I hope that helps on some of the things, and yeah, you shouldn't have agreed to him fixing your car in exchange for not calling the popo - as it could be good, usually it isn't. I mean it is good b/c even if the accident isn't your fault, it gets registered on your record for X months (18? in NY I think). Oh well, water under the bridge now.

Hope that helps.

roc steady

Thanks for the speedy reply, I was able to check it on my sidekick.. couldn't reply.

However, found out that in the wreck it ripped a nasty tear in the wiring between the lamp for the headlight issue. I soldered it up.. good to go... bulb did go bad too. Boo on that ****. As for the fan.. it's been too cool to heat up, however the wiring is in place for that. It's giving 12V I believe.. the fan does turn on when idling, but only sometimes it will not. The fan motor is still good.. when wired, as I said before, spins great. I don't have the slightest idea as to how to remove the ECT. I see it, two wires (green / black) leading from it , can't follow it far. But I assume it is working decent as I haven't heated up in a while.. but it has been raining and fairly cold (50s 60s).

How much does the ECT cost, and I haven't gotten a check engine light so? Still confused.

PS thanks for clearing up a lot of **** for me. It's really helped me. Almost got it fixed.