Lost my cooling fans!! Help, this is my DD...

[GooeyGus]

So I was working on my car this evening, all I did was install a door speaker into my passenger side door, as well as connect the factory dash speakers to my deck.

I had the key on for a while, so afterward I decided to start up the car to let it run for a bit.

It got up to operating temperature without issues, but it got a tiny bit hot (like one needle-width past normal) so I decided to hit my a/c button.

Little bit of background: thanks to a hacked wiring job by the previous owner, my fans have never kicked on by themselves. I watch the temperature like a hawk and hit the AC button to turn on the passenger side fan and it works fine. The drivers side fan has never worked.

SO, I hit the AC button and watched the temp... it climbed another needle width... ! it's 15 degrees outside and usually the AC fan cools it off in under 15 seconds.

At this point I turned the car off.

I put the key to the on position and hit the AC button. No fan. Shit.

So first, to make sure the fan is working, I jumped two pins on a relay. The fan fired right up.

I then checked every fuse that I could think of that could possibly have ANYTHING to do with the AC fan. I unplugged the connector for the AC switch in the car to make sure it was ok, and plugged it back in.Everything checked out okay. The button still lights up and everything.

I then pulled the two relays which control fans on the car. One on the drivers side, one on the passenger side, both under the hood. I tested them on my 12v power supply and both were fine. Hmmmmmmm.... now I'm really lost.

So I hop back in the car to make sure everything else works, assuming that if I found something else not working it would at least give me a direction to go in.

This is when I found that my rear defrost is not turning on. The fuse for the rear defrost (under the hood) is fine, and I know for a fact that the rear defrost worked no more than 12 hours ago, because I used it to defrost this morning!!!

So now I'm really lost. I know the fan works, I know the rear defroster works. what do I do now?

HELP!! I cant drive the car in any sort of traffic if I dont have any fans. Luckily I only live a mile away from work, but I just hate when there is something wrong and I cant figure it out.

Who's got some ideas??



EDIT: The rear defrost works. I've owned this car for 6 years and never realized that the car had to be running for the rear defroster to work.

Anyway... Now we're back to just the fans. I could really use some help

 

[GooeyGus]

Fixed!!

Shortly after my fan stopped working, I realized my alternator fuse was getting very hot.

I measured voltage and found almost 1V drop across the fuse!!!!

I cleaned the contacts very well and the heat went away.

The day before I did this, I wired up a cooling fan switch inside the car. I decided to disconnect the switch and put the relays back in to see if fixing the alternator fuse contacts could somehow have made the fan start working again.

I pressed the AC button, and to my amazement, they work again!!! Somehow the high resistance across the alternator fuse was causing the fan to not come on with the AC button.

It works now!!

EDIT

Well, I THOUGHT I had the problem fixed.

It worked after I did my alternator fuse repair, but then after sitting for another 5 or 6 hours, the fans dont work again.

Then I drove for about an hour last night and they started working again. I'm thinking that there is a relay with some moisture or something in it that is freezing and then not working. I know it's not the relay in the fuse box on the drivers side under the hood, because I had that relay completely removed last night when it started working again.

What other relays control the fan? Is it just the relay on the passenger side under the hood? No others?

This is such a confusing issue....

I have a fan switch wired in now, so it's not quite as urgent, but I really hate when things dont work as they should.