Over heating problems...
 

I read on another thread that someone bought a camaro with 103k miles for about $9000 and it overheated. Well, I have the same problem too. A few months back, I bought a 95 Z28 camaro for $6000 with about 101k miles. I bought it in southern california in san diego during the summer. I brough it up here to northern california where I live and the damn thing over heated twice coming up. When I would pull up to a gas station, i'd start smelling anti freeze, then *POP*, the reservoir cap comes up and its spitting EVERYTHING out. THis happened twice.

Also, once I was in nothern california, on my way home from class, I turned on the A/C, then about 2 miles later, I saw the temp gauge starting go up, then *POP* again the cap came off and started spilling everything everywhere. What can possibly be the problem of this overheating? It hasn't overheated anymore for about 4 months now...but I still think something is wrong... :(

Ok, to make this short, my z28 is overheating. Why? There are two big fans behind the radiator, the one on the right nearest to the battery runs. I've never heard/seen the other fan on. What can possibly be the problem?

Well this could be a number of different things. First thing ide replace with those symptoms is the thermostat. Its like 10 bucks at autozone to buy and its easy to change out. I dont know about the fan. ide check all the wires and junk to make sher everything is hooked up right.

Both fans should run at the same time on your 1995. They run in tandem in low or high speed. You could have a bad fan relay, fan or a wiring issue. Test your relays by swapping them one at a time into the fog light relay slot and turning on the fog lights to see if it works. You can look at this fan wiring schematic. The lower portion below the dotted line should be for your car with 3 fan relays.

Might not hurt to put a new radiator cap on it, too. Make sure it is an 18psi cap.

Ok cool, thanks for the info guys. I'll check out the relays today, and I did replace the radiator cap. The one before was pretty crappy and its also 18 psi.

Also, check and make sure all of your ducting under the front nosepiece is in place. If you look at the very front, bottom piece as it goes under the car, it is held in place in the back by three snap pieces. Make sure that is in place. Also, make sure there is no trash in the radiator. I took a vacuum and cleaned mine out. By cleaning the radiator and reattaching the duct my car ran 15* cooler on the interstate, and heated up a lot slower around town:cool:

John

Ok. i was in the garage looking at the relays, whoa their big. Anyway, do I have to disconnect the battery to unplug a relay? Or can I go about and check the relays, unplug them, and check them with the battery connected?

No problem if the key is OFF.

Ok, i checked the relays as you described. I took of one and put it in the foglights spot on each relay to see if it worked, and yeah, the lights worked. I'm assuming that means that the relays work fine? So, if its not the relays, then it is the actual fan itself? If so, do you know how much it could cost to get it replaced approx?

[Edit]: Oh, and another thing I forgot to mention, the camaro is guaranteed to overheat when I turn on the A/C...ALWAYS...

I hope you figure this out. Mine overheats anytime the air is on. Both my fans are working, new t stat, plenty of coolant thas IS circulating.:(

If you can follow the wiring schematic and have a meter, I would unplug the connector at the left side fan, operate the relay and see if there is +12v on the lt blue wire and ground on the black wire. If that is good, then your fan motor is shot. You can buy just the motor by itself (p/n 22137319, ~$30 wholesale). If it you don't see the proper voltage or ground, you will have to trace out the wiring to see what is wrong. Hopefully, no one has had their hands under the fuse/relay panel and jacked with the wiring. That is always a possibility with a used car. That is why I don't advocate fan switches or alterations that involve the fuse/relay panel.

One way you can operate the fan relays is to jumper pins 5 and 6 together on the DLC and then turn the key ON (not start). This is the "field service enable" mode meant to operate relays and some sensors. You will probably hear a few relays click and the fan(s) should come on. Turn key OFF and then remove the jumper when you are done.

Oh, you will need to get the front of the car up in the air (like on ramps) so you can get to the fans.

The regular operation of the fans have been modified. The owner before me added a little box by the fuse relay box. It's a little box that has a knob style switch where if you turn it to the left, it lowers the temperature of when the fans come on. When you turn it to the right, it raises the temperature. It's kinda like a manual switch type of thing to turn on your fans earlier. Right now, I believe the fans are set to operate at around 180 degrees, a guess by looking at the temperature gauge.

I will lift up the car and see what I can do, because I know right now the only one fan working is the one nearest the battery...

Also, I thank you for having a good website. It's been very resourceful so far in looking up things.

Instead of making a new thread, I'll post on my old one. Where on the temperature gauge is the needle supposed to point at for regular temperature? There are 5 white lines I believe...where do the needles on your car hover at?

Look at this pic of the gauges. The needles are close to what the normal operating temp when cruising would be.

Check for debree in front of the radiator. Mine sucked up a plastic supermarket bag in there and was causing me to overheat.