I have a 1989 Honda Prelude, my first car after college graduation. Although now it is an extra car, it has been great and very reliable. It has about 134,000 miles and I see many more to come. Over the last few months an auxillary fan started to turn itself on at will and would not turn off. Eventually my battery would die. My mechanic disconnected the fan and it was ok for a while. Then it started to turn on by itself again, even 2 days after the car was driven,and my battery is once again dead.The fan was even still running when the battery was dead. Any suggestions???
Sounds like your mechanic didn’t disconnect then fan after all. It may not be a wise move to disconnect it the first place anyway, if it’s an electric cooling fan, your car could overheat if it doesn’t cycle on at certain engine temperatures. I would suggest taking your car to a more competent mechanic and have it repaired properly. It sounds like the therostat switch that controls the fan has gone bad.
The mechanic changed the thermostat switch first , I think, and also changed the fuse that is located under the hood near the battery. He kept it at the shop for several days to keep an eye on it and was ready to have it picked up when it turned on by itself in his garage. After speaking to a mechanic at a local Honda dealership, he was told to just unplug it because it wasn’t a totally necassary item to have. It is on old car, but has no other problems. The interior is still in pretty good condition and really just needs a paint job and a couple other cosmetic fixes. I really don’t want to get rid of it for what seems like should be a simple problem, but don’t want to spend a small fortune to fix it. Thank for your help. Any other ideas?
Some Hondas have an electric fan behind the AC condensor & another fan behind the radiator.
Condensor & radiator are along side each other.
Sounds like the mechanic disabled the one behind the AC condensor. Not a problem if you dont care about the AC working.
For a car that old I would wire a toggle switch into the circuit and forget about it. See if the fan works in the on or off position. If it’s the off position, put it on your dash upside-down. Turn it on for stop and go driving. I think you’re talking about the radiator fan. When things don’t work on an 89 car, you get to do evil experiments. Put the fuse on the hot wire in the engine area, not inside the passenger/driver area.
You need a mechanic who knows a little about electrical circuits, how to use an electrical multimeter, and how to read a basic wiring diagram. Such as this: http://www.autozone.com/autozone/repairinfo/repairguide/repairGuideContent.jsp?chapterTitle=Wiring+Diagrams&partName=Chassis+Electrical&pageId=0900c1528005f9fc&partId=0900c1528005f8f0 Enlarge Fig. 23. Enlarge further by pressing ctrl++ keys six (6) times (or, View, Zoom In six (6) times.
You could just replace the Condensor Fan relay, and the Cooling Fan relay. That might fix the problem.