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One for the STW mechanicaly compotent cadre. We have a 2.3 honda Shuttle as our bike bus. The engine is running fine but when it is hot, say after a couple of hours on the motorway and you either stop or sit in traffic it is overheating - to the extent of boiling the coolant off. The twin fans are not coming on despite the temperature gauge going into the red.
I have 1) checked the fuses 2) changed the fan relay 3)had the coolant temperature swith replaced - the car has been into my usual mechanic and the local honda dealer but the problem still persists. I think they may be looking it as overhearing rather than a not cooling down problem.
If I take the lead from the fans out of the coolant temperature switch and cross them with a piece of wire the fans come on so I don't think it's the fans' motors. I've also tried kicking the car realy hard which has resulted in a dented wing!
Any thoughts, I'm tempted to get another temperature coloant switch in case i've ended up with a duff new one or buy a new car.
Have you checked coolant levels (and checked that the right % of antifreeze is in the system)? Ie, if you keep topping up with water when it overheats, the antifreeze levels may now be too low.
Or as a 'fix' could you retrofit a Kenlowe fan?
http://www.kenlowe.com/fans/consumers/fans02.html
coolant topped up by honda, so no joy there. the Kenlowe sounds interesting.
Why not just fit a manual switch to the fans? A mate of mine did that when his rover did the same thing, ran another 2 years like that before he sold it on.
[i]The twin fans are not coming on despite the temperature gauge going into the red.[/i]
so it's either the switch or the wiring.
you can test the switch off the car with some boiling water and an ameter to make sure it comes on.
other option is to bypass the auto switch and fit a manual switch under the dash that overrides it.
Why not just fit a manual switch to the fans? A mate of mine did that when his rover did the same thing, ran another 2 years like that before he sold it on.
That's on my list of options. Someone at work has suggested the radiator cap may not be sealing, is this a possibility (no one at work is particuarly mecahnicaly blessed!)
if it's the rad cap the car won't overheat but is likely to lose coolant continuously once the engine is up to temperature and the system is pressurised. So unless you lose coolant all the time and it only overheats once the coolant level drops it's not that.
You must concentrate on the fans not cutting in when the engine gets hot - you don't need to drive for hours to achieve that just drive it around the bock until it's up to temperature and then let it sit and idle for 10 minutes - the lack of air flow throught the raidator will raise the coolant temperature enough to kick the fans in.
If the fans are not cutting in either there is no ( not enough ) power getting to them, or a poor earth from the fan to the body of the car and back to the battery.
Get a multimeter and a circuit diagram and test everything cold and again hot. If you don't get 12v + to the fan when hot the problem is on the supply and swtiching side, if you do you have a bad earth.