My radiator fan won't ever come on, and i haven't been able to find out why.

a friend of mine suggested hooking it up to a switch so i can turn it on when i choose.

sounds pretty sweet to me

any suggestions on how to go about doing it?

 

Find the problem in the fan circuit rather than rigging the car.

 

but, if rigging is your style, go to a local auto parts store. get heavy gauge wire (minimum 12, preferably 10), a 30 amp fuse holder and 30 amp switch. run a hot wire with the fuse directly from the battery to the hot side of the plug. run a ground wire inside the car and wire up the switch, then just find a good ground point, the seat bolt will work well. just make sure it turns the correct direction before making the connections permenant

 

Solve the problem and don't use a Bandaid Fix. Next question you will have is, how do I replace a burned out fan motor????

 

Since hot-wiring the fan is going to power it with the same 12 volts the computer would otherwise tell it to get powered with, you're not going to hurt or burn out the motor because of that. However, if you run the fan constantly you'll shorten it's life, so use it only when the engine needs it (not needed on the open highway). I see no problem at all switching the fan on manually as an emergency back-up. But, it would be a good idea to eventually get the problem fixed so you don't accidentally go "oops", forget to turn it on, and overheat the engine.

 

first let me ask some questions, because we can probably figure out why your fan isnt coming on

what is the year and trim of your camaro/firebird?

is it single or dual fan setup?

does your fan motor work at all?(easiest way to test that if your car has AC is to turn the AC on, your fan will automatically kick on)


if it is a single fan(or if its any base model non-Iroc) then your computer has nothing to do with when the fan comes on,if your fan motor works then there is a "fan switch" on the pass side engine block right near where the dip stick goes into the block, that is the sensor that reads the temp for your fan and tells it when to kick on

your problem can be one of three things(or a combination of the three)

Your fan motor
Your fan switch
Your gauge is reading wrong

my problem turned out to be a bad temp gauge, after i had already tested my fan motor and replaced my fan switch

oh and there is nothing wrong with wiring your fan to a switch, ive also got that done on mine(even though my fan circut works fine) so when im at the track i can control when my fan is on to keep my motor around the same temp consitantly, but i, like others like to have things working properly before i add a "cool" feature to it

 

89 camaro rs, 2.8 v6
single fan
no idea if the fan motor works. i dont have AC, so can't test it that way.

 

Hook it straight to power to test it, idk if the v6 is the same as the lo3 when it comes to the location of the fan switch though so you might wanna research that

 

can be a wiring or grounding issue to the fan, or needed fan motor replacement might work too but need to recheck it first so make sure it's the one bugging down.