Tuesday, June 5, 2007

Car trouble - fan going off and on

The fan in my car has always acted funny. Most of the time, it would cut off every now and then if it weren't on high. I have one of those variable-speed fans. I don't just have high, medium, and low; there's probably 25 steps from off to high. The car's a 1987 Acura Legend, and in my experience, it's pretty much your typical late-80s Honda dashboard, so if you've seen one, you've probably seen mine.

Then, a month or so ago, it just quit for good. Wouldn't blow on high, low, or anywhere in between. Wouldn't blow with the AC on (or off), wouldn't matter if the heater were on or not. Wouldn't matter if the vents were set to recycle or fresh. So my brother-in-law said it was probably the fan, the whole dash would have to be taken out to get to a box behind it, where the fan motor is. We would have done just that this past weekend, but a tropical storm came through. We weren't badly affected, but we did have severe weather warnings off and on all weekend. (For those who don't know, a tropical storm and a hurricane are about the same thing, only a tropical storm isn't strong enough to be a hurricane, but can develop into one, or a hurricane can be reduced to a tropical storm.)

Well, we were talking to a mechanic friend of my brother-in-law - most of his mechanic friends are old enough to be his father, and this guy was one such friend. He had us check the fuse both visually and with a tester. The fuse was clearly blown, but current was still passing through enough to light up the tester. So we figured the fan just wasn't getting enough juice.

We went to Advance Auto Parts, his choice, but they didn't even carry the size I needed - a 30-amp fuse. Well, it wasn't quite a fuse, it had to be screwed in, they called it a relay. It was in the fuse box, though. I don't get too technical under the hood - it's computers I know my way around. So we go to Auto Zone, the other one, and they have one in. $2.99, or $3 and some change out the door with tax.

So far, it's been runnin' pretty good.

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