Had to jump car twice(cleaned connections also) in same day so I had it checked and it was shot so I replaced the battery, now the engine fan won't shut off?? Have to disconnect battery to shut it off. Also the gauges/speedo been going goofy for couple weeks now. Any suggestions? I did read the thread about soldering guages but that doesn't seem to apply to my problem.

 

1) Check the fan relay - it may have gone bad. If it is stuck on, the fan will stay on as it gets power directly from the battery. That is why you can turn off your car and if the car's coolent temp sensor says that the car is still too warm, the fan will keep running until it cools down enough. It can happen that bad batteries can actually damage relays, and they are cheap.

2) As for the guages, it sounds like the cold solder joint problem, and it is easy and cheap to try and fix it, so why not give it a go? You won't hurt anything unless you go crazy and keep it on too long and burn through the board, but if you pay attention, as soon as you see the solder change color and ooze a little, you're done, move to the next pin.

 

Thanks, where is the fan relay located on the car?

 

Located in the Power Distribution Center (PDC) behind the battery. You can replace the horn with the fan and see if it fixes it to know if it is a bad relay (assuming your horn works - of course).

 

Thanks for the replies, Do you know which relay it is? There's 5 of them in there and all marked the same. The diagram on the cover shows the fuse locations but not relays location.
If I hook battery back up and start pulling relays will that tell me which one it is and how do I test once I find it?

 

switch the relays with another one from the set of 5 you already have.

 

I pulled all the relays in the PDC and it still runs whenever the neg. cable connected. Also disconnected water temp sender, still the same. I know it's a short, where do I start looking?

 

start looking after the PDC everything before that has been deadended when you pulled the relays. Ill see if i can find the diagram for it.

 

Since you pulled all of the relays and it still runs, I assume you have a version of this car that used the Solid State Relays (SSR's). These are pulsed with a PWM signal from the PCM and they act like a true transistor, by using a small amount of signal to control the heavy amperage load of the fans.

Problem is, they have a lower than advertised operating life, and are subject to failure, in which they fail shorted. Hence, your symptom is the fans will not shut off.

Ths SSR is located on the driver side inner unibody frame rail, attached with a rivet.

Replacements are $60 - $80, or bone yard, or I think there is a wiring conversion kit back to the old box relay system.

In the short term, get under the car, locate the relay and unplug it.

 

Thanks I'll try that!!