Yesterday, I started the car and drove to the first light. The AC was blowing hot air. Then when I started moving it blew cold air. Same thing when I stopped at the next light. Then the car overheated to the point quickly to 230+ coolant and high oil temps. Got into reduced power mode but could not pull over as I was getting into the interstate, so I went slowly but over 35 mph (the temp that you need to go to have your car cooled naturally by the air flow), and the the temps went back to normal, which means in my opinion the issue is fan related.

This morning I had the chance to drive, no ac and a path w no red lights of course, to PepBoys, and had the CEL codes pulled:

P0480 Cooling Malfunction
P1258 Engine Coolant overtemperature
P0480 Cooling Fan 1 control circuit


A few weeks ago my driver's side DRL stopped working, so I thought that there would be a fuse that share that fuction and the radiator fans, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

With that said, I was wondering if you guys could help me with the issue. Where should I begin looking?

Could it be the 60amp fuse at location 25? Any other fuses to check? Maybe the DRL situation has something to do with it?

Could it be the fan relay? I read that if the car is tuned and they tune the fans to be on at all times, the relay can melt due to the heat, and you can just bypass that and hard wire around it.

THANK YOU

 

I believe the connector itself melts. Start by inspecting yours. Unplug the big connector behind the fan on the passenger side to see if the terminals are burned up.

 

Yes, connector, not relay.

 

I think you guys are right. I checked the connector that connects the wire of the PWN to the actual harness, and it seems that one of them (the power wire - 10 gauge red) had a minor melt-down.

I bought some 10gauge cable and 10-12gauge crimp connectors with built in shrink wrap (The car is at the building garage, don't have power access to use my have a soldering gun), and I will hard-wire it.

Should I hard-wire the other 2 cables as well or just that one?

Pics:

Male connector





Female Connector

 

if I remember correctly there are two larger wires and one smaller one. The smaller one will be fine inside the connector but I would bypass the connector for the two larger ones if you're already doing one.

 

Awesome, thank you SO MUCH for the feedback.

I'll hard-wire both tonight to my wife's joy, as I had to steal her car today, and she Ubered to work due to the different distances and my need to use a car throughout the day

 

I would completely remove the connector.

 

Clean the condenser coils behind the radiator while you are at it, all kinds of crap gets in there.

 

I should have, but I ended up keeping it there.

I will get it done as I had to crimp the wires since my soldering gun didn't reach where the car was (building parking lot), and I don't like the idea of having something that is not as permanent as a soldering job.

Car is working fine though, so thanks for the input

Car mid surgery

 

Crimps are great, and soldering is over rated.

I design and currently work on medical devices for electrosurgery, and all electrical connections are crimped. These are parts used in ER and emergency situations for life saving, and for heart and general surgery. Crimps work amazingly well, and better than solder in a lot of cases.

 

interesting!

The 10 gauge wires were pretty hard to crimp, so I just didn't feel as confident as a 14 gauge wire being crimped to a half pancake style. I feel like if I pulled on the 10 gauge crimp hard enough it would come apart.
Also the ground wire was pretty stretched out, I would hate to have that disconnect with time, since what was reinforced by 2 10-gauge wires holding on for dear life lol

 

Stuff crimped properly, that is, obviously. Not with some $7 crimpers from Walmart like most people try to use

 

In for the result.

 

The result has already been posted. I hardwired both wires minus the ground wire, and the issue is gone

 

As mentioned above, as a PM, remove the top plastic radiator mount. You'll see the AC Cond in front of the radiator (sits in back) with about a 3/4" gap. This gap can get fully cluttered with debris. Hose all of this out of the front of the rad fins and it helps so the fans aren't running as much. I did this on my 09 and couldn't believe the debris I found.

Some have made a wash wand from a piece of copper pipe attached to a garden hose and form a right angle at the tip.

 

Here's how to hot wire the cooling fan for best results...

https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...stock-fan.html