Neither my temperature guage nor my radiator fan worked when I bought my Integra a few weeks ago. I noticed the temp gauge right away, and used it to get the price down, but it was close to a week before I realized that my radiator fan wasn’t working. I hardwired that into my parking lights and now just turn it on whenever I’m in stop-and-go traffic, or speeding on the highway (i.e. anything higher then 65mph).
The funny thing is, very occasionally the temp gauge will come on, and it never goes past halfway, but it only will come on for a few minutes, then go right off again. This always happens at low speeds, typically stop-and-go. This leads me to believe it’s a lose wire, but I don’t even know where to start. Same with the radiator fan. I’m suspecting the relay, but am curious if these two problems are dependent upon each other (i.e. if the temp gauge doesn’t work, will the radiator fan not work too?).
I did searches on this, but couldn’t find specific enough information on it. As always, any help would be greatly appreciated.
sounds like it could be the thermostat. I’m pretty sure that if the thermostat the heat wonht register on your gauge which in turn wont turn your fan on if that makes sense and since it is such a cheap part to replace I would start with that.
Wrong and wrong. The temperature sending unit is what oyu guys should have said. The thermostat has nothing to do with sending a signal to the ECU or guage cluster. All it does is open and let water/ coolant pass. That’s it.
So it’s most likely the temp. sending unit, not the relay? This would affect both problems?
BTW, I already have a new thermostat, but haven’t replaced it yet (life keeps getting in the way of my new project), even though I’m sure the one in there is fine (both hoses get warm after a long drive, the top a little warmer then the other).
You might have 2 seperate but related problems.
Yes your gauge is broke rather it’s the sending unit or not. Seems however you already know that.
Second, without the gauage working properly you will not know if the engine is running too cold for the fan to even kick on due to a thermostat that stuck open. However if you top hose is hot than more than likely you have not checked it after you have started the engine up and held on to it while it was idling too see if you can feel if there is no coolant flowing through 'til the engine warms up. If coolant runs threw all the time then you know it’s stuck open.
My guess is you are having the same problem as me. My gauge works but never seems to get past the halfway point despite the fact my fans do not work.
I’m thinking my problem is the cooling fan temp switch. i’ll find out later when I get my stupid switch unplugged! Who knew it would be such a pain in the ass job.
Then on top of that my A/C fan doesn’t run either causing me to not have any A/C. Once I fix the cooling fan who knows if the A/C fan will start working again or if it’s connected to a totally different system? No one has pointed that out yet.
I just ran a ground and a 12v from my sidemarker lights for now to get the fan on. I’ll reverse that once I know the issue is solved once and for all.
hmm seems like im hearing a lot of bull shit claims. If your temp gauge is always buried at C and if the car sits or is involved in stop an go, it tries to make its way up, but goes down after you take off, its most definately your thermostat. As you drive the temp gauge gets stuck, and the reading is off, so your car reads really cold and you never get hot air. To fix it, just replace your thermostat, if that doesnt work, i have no clue. I had the exact same problem and fixed it with a 15$ part and a 15 minute install. (thermostat)
How in the hell do you run in traffic with no fans and not read some sort of temp? Even with a stuck thermostat you should be producing some heat!
I still think he is having a gauge issue. My Mustang had no thermostat when I bought it used and it still read about 1/2 on the temp with fans running.
No, the gauge is most definitely the issue here, whether or not the thermostat works properly or not, it wouldn’t go from below C to halfway between C and H in half a minute, then back down again. No cooling system in the world works that well. Also, the gauge, like I said, only works occasionally. It actually came on today for two minutes - this is the first time in many days.
As for the A/C fan, I’m curious where this is. I don’t seem to have one. I hear people say they hard wire that one instead of the rad fan to keep the radiator cool, but behind my radiator I have only one fan, and it’s most definitely the one that’s supposed to be coming on. My air conditioner works great (heater doesn’t work so great in the mornings, but works awesome in the afternoons when I don’t need it so much).
Course this is just one of many on my list of things to fix. Seems every one thing I check off, two more get added.
The A/C fan is the smaller of the 2 fans and is located on the driverside of the radiator right dead smack in front of the very hot exhaust manifold.
I know this is it because there is a wire running from it to my compressor.
I agree with tbeesh. The only way the temp would be buried at C is if there were no thermostat in the housing. This would cause coolant to flow all the time and stay very cold. But occasionally it might jump up and all the way back down. This happened to a old prelude I borrowed from someone and I didn’t know wtf was going on. Or the thermostat could just be stuck open. This could also be a faulty temp switch as well. Just replace one at a time and see if it solves the problem.