Hello, im new here and i have a quesiton? My car is a 95 Chevy Cavalier with the 2.2 166K mile's, 5 speed. My temp gauge is rite in the middle but when i accelerate up a hill it move's a little bit to the "Hot" then goes back to the middle. I notice that my engine cooling fan doesn't come on when its idling. There's no engine defects its just wants to overheat a little when im going up hill's. Also if i decided to flush my radiator where would be the drain plug for it or do i have to loosen the bottom radiator hose to change the fluid?
The fan doesn't come on until it points about half way between normal and "hot". You're fine if it never hits the red zone.
Yep, you've got a normal cooling system. Drain plug located bottom, driver side. Unscrews a few turns to open, then pull to remove (if necessary). Best to have it backflushed every 100K miles. Don't mix coolant types.
When the temp gauge is in the middle the fan doesn't come on and when i let it idle for quite some time, it will overheat just idling. For some reason it doesn't wanna work, so far i changed the temp sensor, cooling fan relay, and now im changing out the cooling fan in a bid hoping that might help. I have question, removing the fan i notice thats there one bolt and the fan slides out but i can't seem to get the top section off. I slide it back and fourth but it seems to not come off. How do i remove it ??
Update. I changed out the fan but it still wont click on when the engine is idling, im pretty much stumped cause i changed the sensor and the fan. I did a power test with the wire that plugs into the fan, one wire showed power and the other wire didnt but i was told that the wire that didnt show power is the ground. With the old models does the fan come one when the vehicle is in motion? or ? Also could it be the thermostat that's making my car overheat?
Thanks for any response's
What's strange is my fan is on ALL the time.
Fan should not be on all the time unless you have the AC on too.
Lonnie: sounds like it might be a dead fan, try wiring it directly to the battery to see if it works.
For mid-late 90s manuals with 2.2s, dead middle of the temp gauge is 195, normal operating point. Fan will be on either when the temp gets about 4/5 the way up the gauge, and/or whenever the A/C compressor is on (this includes defrost mode).
Thanks guys. The starting working when the gauge went up, it came on with the it reach between the middle and hot and went back to normal.
Don't worry about it my car does the same thing up hills@85 when the a/c is on.
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'96 Cavalier Good ol' Pushrod 2.2
-24X,000 miles on factory build
-Some oil loss between changes, me thinks it be rings.
