93 Accord Sedan Fan

A few mornings ago the car was dead. Almost no battery charge at all but
some relay was clicking slowly.. I plugged in the charger and the fan
started to run. I temporarily fixed this by pulling the fuse but need to
find the actual switch or short circuit. Does anyone have any ideas as I
cannot see anything wrong. Everything else is fine. Please reply here or
by email removing the obvious bit and changing the first "a" to "r." TIA

Alan C

 

The draining of your battery and the fan running is the clue.

Most likely your fan relay has its contacts welded closed so the fan is
probably running all the time, draining your battery.
Or it could be that the part that drives the fan is bad, telling the
relay to close and thus the fan to run, draining your battery.

To determine whether your relay is bad, find the cooling and air
conditioner fan relays. I think they are in the fuse box under the hood
on an accord.

Most likely they are identical (ie. have identical part numbers).

If so, mark them both so you know where they came from (one coolant
fan, one relay fan) and pull them both out.
Then put the AC fan's relay in the coolant fan's socket. See if your
problem now goes away. If so, your problem is the coolant fan's relay -
get a new one.
(now you know why you'll want to mark them when you pull them out).

If the fan is still running with the AC relay in the coolant fan's
socket, whatever drives your fan is bad. Report back so we can talk you
through what to do next.

Remco

 

I am not near a manual right now, but this PDF might be useful to you:
http://www.honda.co.uk/owner/AccordManual/400/16-103.pdf

It shows where typically these relays are located, where the timer is
located (if that happens to be your problem -- less likely) and the
wiring between all components.

 

Thank you very much. The fan must have turned itself on overnight when
properly turned off as it was not running when I got home that day. I'll
check the relay(s) when the snow stops!! I guess it doesn't matter much if
the fan is disabled this time of the year here in Canada unless I get stuck
in traffic somewhere, which I will not do. Thanks also for the diagram and
the really fast response.
Alan C

 

Glad I could be of help.

Fans often run after you shut the car off to cool them off properly. It
could be that it never shut off when you parked it. The timer is
supposed to turn it off after some predetermined time -- it could still
be the timer or related circuitry, but that is far less likely than the
relay's contacts being shorted so check that first by swapping relays.

Don't drive without the cooling fan disabled, though. You may have
never noticed, but fans do periodically turn on, even on cold days.
You don't want to run the risk of overheating and doing serious damage
to the car. If you really need to drive the car and don't get to
troubleshoot it, let the fan run all the time and pull the fan's fuse
when you park it.

Enjoy the snow - hopefully we're (southern CT) not getting any no time
soon

Remco