Hey guys my 2.2l 96' cavalier, the fan for the radiator will not turn on. The temperature gauge in the car will start to get hot and no fan. Even with the AC on there is no fan. I put 12v to the fan and it worked great. So the fan motor is good. I also checked the fuse under the hood and it was good, and i swapped the relay with a good one from the heater and it still didn't turn on. What can i do to get to the cause of this? The car stays cool while moving, but warms up when it is at a stop. Thanks.

i replaced the temp sensor on the side of the thermostat housing as well. Didnt fit it.

also im pretty sure it worked yesterday.

well i just pulled the plug for the coolant sensor while the car was running and plugged it back in, when i did the fan came on! It also threw a CEL and the fan does not seem to shut off. i will pull the negative off the battery tomorrow and reset the computer

so i read that anytime the CEL comes on the fan will run continuously. by pulling the connector off while the motor was running it tripped the CEL which made the fan come on. Does this tell us anything?

Apparently it tells us that your fan is working.





i find it amusing that SHOoff has nothing better to do but follow me around & be an unhelpful dick in even cross-forum. - Jon Mick

CEL is no longer on and the fan is back to not working. What kind of tests can i do to determine why?

well it tells us what its supposed to as far as not being within the limits of the sensor and kicking the fan on...by removing the sensor your computer decides the temp is out of range so it goes on.
Could the thermostat be stuck so its not actually reading a high temp?


04 Cav. 2dr. 5spd. My DD. 'Nuff said.

how high does the gauge get? if its anywhere within the bracket that says "normal" then youre fine. once it gets above that then you worry.



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Well on a cavalier the normal bar is pretty long. It has been to the end of the line right before the H

Do you have the base model cluster with no tach?





i find it amusing that SHOoff has nothing better to do but follow me around & be an unhelpful dick in even cross-forum. - Jon Mick

The fan won't turn on until the coolant reaches 223 degrees. Is it getting that hot?

bad thermostat?


04 Cav. 2dr. 5spd. My DD. 'Nuff said.

Bobby Eidens wrote:Well on a cavalier the normal bar is pretty long.

we are aware. and it says normal for a reason.

Quote:

It has been to the end of the line right before the H

was it touching the red? or outside that bar at all? if not, then the fan wouldnt be turning on.



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Fan is not programed to come on until 223 degree's.

Now if the fan is not coming on when you turn the a/c I have to ask does your ac work?



FU Tuning

I was wondering about the base model cluster, because for some reason those seem to be inaccurate as hell. Mine would always sit way toward the hot side, but when I swapped to the cluster with the tach my temp needle was planted right at the 195 all the time. If you do have the base model cluster with no tach, I would suggest plugging in a scanner tool that can read live data just to verify whether or not the ECU is actually seeing the same temp that the gauge is showing.





i find it amusing that SHOoff has nothing better to do but follow me around & be an unhelpful dick in even cross-forum. - Jon Mick

I doubt it is getting hot as well, if the thermostat was stuck the fan would still kick on. That is if the older 2.2 has one temp sensor like the ld9 and 2200 does. As the gauge and pcm gets the same reading from the same sensor. If the pcm didn't have a reading from the temp sensor the check engine light would likely be on along with the temp gauge not working. If you fan kicks on unplugging the sensor that means the pcm is seeing the sensor and the trigger wire to the relay is in good shape as well. I'm with sho as well the older 2.2's with the single core radiators seemed to get hot according to the clusters with no tach.

Also I believe the 00 plus clusters are more accurate/don't move as much as the 99 below. As my 00 with the 2200 stays right in the middle cept stop and go where it hits the 2nd mark above middle where the fan kicks on. Anything 99 below I have seen nearly touch the yellow before the fan would kick on. As the motor in my 2000 is out of my 99 where my 99 has the same dual core radiator as my 00. In the 99 it would constantly come close to the yellow, though it could be the different in the fan kick on temps as I never checked them out. With the ac on both it set dead in the middle no matter of temps in both cars.

seeing as its not coming on by the AC button chances are its a control thing

is your temperature always climbing or does it go down when driving majority of the time your fan is off while driving as air over the rad provides enough cooling however if your overheating while driving could be a tstat could be a head gasket both are not unheard of on a 2.2L

as for control do you have 12V at the relay (pole side not coil side),
do you have contenuity to ground



JBO since July 30, 2001

Maybe I am missing it but he said it is getting hot because the fan isn't coming on. If the t-stat, head gasket or anything of that nature was the issue it would still be kicking on. He would also have 12 volts at the relay if he unplugs the temp sensor and the pcm kicks the fan on. As for fan not coming on via ac I would venture to guess it is like every other j-body where the ac has lost pressure not allowing the a/c to kick on. Though I don't know if that is the issue being I never seen him mention the ac was charged and such. I would venture to guess it isn't running hot/fan issue as above due to the fact it hasn't hit the fan temp kick on.

Quote:

Maybe I am missing it but he said it is getting hot because the fan isn't coming on

That really isn't true. Since the fans are programmed to come on at 223 degree's (which on a base model tach is very high), it gets warm/hot because that is how GM intended it to be. Then the fan comes on.

The best way to rule it out is to have some kind of datalogger that can read the ECU's sensor's and see what the temp is at.

I love HPT for this reason as well as I can force the fan on and off to test it. Which rules out control issues.



FU Tuning

If I was going that route I would also say them temp sensor may be off. How ever I wasn't even going that route. He says it is getting hot because the fan isn't kicking on. I know what the fan kick on temp is for everything but the older 2.2 as I have hptuners as well. Explain how it would be getting hot if never hitting the fan kick on temp? As I am confused when the temp gauge and pcm uses the same sensor. With that said if the fan works unplugging the sensor, u put a new sensor in, and the fan isn't kicking on. Then I doubt it is running hot when it has yet to hit the temp setting. Now is that a hot temp for the fan to kick on? Sort of with a 195 degree thermostat the rule of thumb I know is the fan should kick on 10 to 15 degrees above that.

Also something to add about the stock gauge being off. My 99 since it had 60k on it has never been close to accurate. On time the fan may kick on a smidge above middle the next close to the yellow. Datalogging shows the same temp when it decides to do it.

2fast4u88 wrote:If I was going that route I would also say them temp sensor may be off. How ever I wasn't even going that route. He says it is getting hot because the fan isn't kicking on. I know what the fan kick on temp is for everything but the older 2.2 as I have hptuners as well. Explain how it would be getting hot if never hitting the fan kick on temp? As I am confused when the temp gauge and pcm uses the same sensor. With that said if the fan works unplugging the sensor, u put a new sensor in, and the fan isn't kicking on. Then I doubt it is running hot when it has yet to hit the temp setting. Now is that a hot temp for the fan to kick on? Sort of with a 195 degree thermostat the rule of thumb I know is the fan should kick on 10 to 15 degrees above that.

Also something to add about the stock gauge being off. My 99 since it had 60k on it has never been close to accurate. On time the fan may kick on a smidge above middle the next close to the yellow. Datalogging shows the same temp when it decides to do it.

you and the OP are using "hot" very subjectively, since no one is really posting what they're considering hot. you admit knowing what the factory setting the fan comes on at. is it a bit high? sure. but if it was a dangerous high, there wouldn't be many j cars left on the road. OP just said his car is getting hot. know what? i cant even grab my radiator hoses they're so hot at 180*. which is below the thermostat temperature. until someone starts throwing real temperature numbers around that have been measured, here's the answer.

until the gauge gets out of the normal range (outside of the bracket that says normal) then you don't need to worry.



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My point is gm programmed it to be 223 degrees for the fan to kick on. If you read what he had posted he said it was getting hot because of the fan not kicking on. He switched the temp sensor and verified the relay had power and pcm was able to kick the fan on. In turn it isn't getting hot because of the fan not kicking on. It just isn't hitting the 223 degree fan kick on temp to kick the fan on. In turn it truely isn't running hot as it was designed to be that way.

I never said it was hot at 223 degree either. Most gm's I have messed with set at 210 to 215 with 195 degree thermostat no matter if the fan is running all the time. The 10 to 15 degree temp raise for the fan to kick on I spoke of is so that the fan isn't kicking on all the time/staying on when not needed. Causing unwanted power draw putting load on the alternator. 10 degrees from 195 would be 205 and 15 would be 210. How ever if it wants to set idle or even driving around town at 210-215 with the fan on. It would be pointless to have the fan kick on temps set at 205 or 210. 223 degrees isn't overheating/hot but getting up there where it leaves a bit less margin for error if something were to happen. Now onto what is hot is 230degrees or more, which if I recall right is where gm set the factory temp settings of the 93-97 fbodys.

I'm not trying to start with anyone but pointing out the obvious of how the stock system works. Also the above normal is a mute point, as I said 99 below I have physically seen the stock cluster read normal one min kicking the fan on then up to the almost yellow before the fan kicked on. Where in a datalog it would show the same temp of the fan kicking on. 00 plus doesn't seem to suffer from it and seems to be more accurate. The same motor out of my 99 is in my 00, my 99 and 00 have the dual core radiator and same fan. Well did have before my swap. My 00 sets right on the 195 mark 95% of the time and sometimes hits the 2nd mark above 195. I assume this is because the cluster feeding off of the bcm vs the pcm and the code being different between the two.

I know this is an older thread but I am actually suffering a similar issue in my 05 sunfire... I have a basic scanner and for the most part temps stay in the normal and I am not concerned but when I get stuck in traffic and the temp jumps to 230+ or I have the A/C on (which blows nice cold air until it hits the high pressure cut off, and it won't reach that as long as I am moving) I know that both my cooling system and my a/c are functioning correctly. Also I can manually provide the fan 12V and all is good. I have removed the fan relay and the pcm doesn't appear to be providing the signal wire for the relay any voltage, so the relay is never switching. I have considered wiring the fan to a manual switch and just bypassing the pcm and relay but would rather do this the right way whatever that might be. Any Ideas out there? The Service manual says to use the GM Scantool to verify that the PCM is turning on the fan. If I new what the PID was I could program it into my scanner and take a look. Other than that I am at a loss.

Same deal here. Noticed sometimes temp goee down a lil using the brakes.. I dunno im stumped too


ReD RaiN