'92 SL1 cooling fam wont come on

The cooling fan on my 92 SL 1 wont come on although the temp gauge is past
midway. There is current to the fan relay in the fuse box and current to
the fuse also.Where else should i look next? Thanks for your help.....Mark
in Kansas City

 

With 95 SL2 the fan was thermostat controlled. It came on a good bit
past the halfway mark. When it did, you knew it because you could see
the gauge drop. If the AC is not on, the fan was controlled by the
thermostat. The fan came on and stayed on when the AC was on.

Hope this helps,
Chris

 

What if the A/C does not have a charge?Wil it still come on?....Mark

 

Also , I tested the fan with the battery and it did come on....Mark

 

As mentioned many times before with the S-series, the halfway mark on
the temp gage means nothing. The fan comes on when the temp sensor
reaches 220 deg. I doubt the halfway mark even equals 200 deg at that
point.

 

I've found that my 96SL2 doesn't kick on the fan till the temp is
almost 3/4ths then shuts off about 1/2.

hth,

tom @ www.CarFleaMarket.com

 

Well , ok , I was juist concerend that it might be over heating.I try to
take care of my cars , although this is
my sons car, I have been fixing it,and am new to Saturns.We bought it for
$300.00 It needed a clutch, cv joints and thats was it.It has 184K miles on
it, sun roof and looked good.I have found the car to be very well engineered
and pretty simple to work on SO FAR.....LOL.....Mark
PS: on the back of thge motor there are 2 sensors of some kind, one has 2
wires going to it(one yellow) na dthe other has 1 wire .What is the correct
postion of these wires?... Mark

 

Well , ok , I was juist concerend that it might be over heating.

Blowing steam and bursting hoses is overheating. Half way on the gauge is
nowhere near it.

I've run my 92 SC race car on the track at the top of the red on the temp
gauge for 20 minutes with no problems at all. Granted, it's not good to do
that if you can avoid it...

Your fan should come on at about 3/4 on the gauge. You can test it by
turning on the air conditioning - the fan should come on. Make sure the
plastic air dam is still under the car near the radiator as it helps a lot
with cooling (wasn't on my race car at the time it was running that hot).

Lane [ lane (at) evilplastic.com ]

 

They are simple little cars but as for well enginered they should have
a Rebuild Engine light that comes on after 200,000km I have always used
100% synthetic oil in all my cars and have had wonderfull luck but my
SC1 had to rebuild the engine @ 205,000. My 3 Chryslers had over
350,000kms and my Hyundai had close to 400,000 oh and my Crown Vic went
to 400,000 so in short the engine is crap.

 

Well, just so you know, I work for Ford Motor, I and i found this car very
easy to work on. I doubt that changing the clutch in any of the cars u
mentioned(cept the Crown Vic,it dont have one) would have been near as easy
as the Saturn was....Mark

 

I was not talking about the clutch I was talking about the engine
Saturn openly admited to me that 99% of all the 1.9L engines have oil
ring failure at around 200,000km and all the additives in the world
would not prevent this from happening. It took them 9 years to say that
they solved the problem and most engines built after 2001 no longer
have oil ring failure. But whos to say it still wont happen most 2001's
are barley hiting 200,000 km yet. as for the Crown Vic nope definatly
never had a clutch unless you modifiy them. As for clutches theres is
very few cars with clutches that last over 150,000 its just normal wear
and tear. I put 3 in my Daytona and going to be putting a 3rd in the
Saturn soon. with 257,000 km.

 

Lots of people are well past 200,000km (124,274 miles) on their S-
series Saturns. BTW SC1 equals SOHC. If you want to bash the cheap SOHC
engine be my guess but dont lump all of Saturn together like a bigot. I
dont care what Make of car you buy, every car company produces bad
models and good models. You're opinion comes from owning the cheapest
engine Saturn offerd.

If you need a 3rd clutch in a car with only 257,000km (159,692miles) on
it then I'd say its not the Saturn that is the issue. The one s-series
that was in my family (hard driven-94-twincam-manual) had over 140k
miles on it before being sold and the ONLY serious issue was it needed a
new heatercore because the conventional green coolant was old and ate
through the aluminum tubing. I've seen plenty of GM vehicles well past
1,100,000km (700k miles) with not much more than a few alternator
replacements.

 

well for your information the 1.9L SOHC and the DOHC had the same
bottom end (Short Block) and the same rings they only changed the
cylinder head to give them the extra power. Plus the DOHC engine was
renowned for having alot of the heads crack around 100,000km. I could
go on forever with all the problems with my Saturn as well as horor
stories from freinds that have one. Dont get me wrong this car is fun
to drive when I can actualy drive it. Being a licenced Macanic is
definatly a plus if you own one cause they cheap and easy to fix, they
just need alot of fixing.

 

Now about those wires?Do the green and grey wires go to the left or on the
right ?....Mark

 

Sounds like you got a pretty good deal on the car. My 94 SC2 now has
203,600 miles on her. She is my daily driver, and gets me through my
100 mile per day commute here in Colorado.
As far as everything going to crap after 200,000 miles...same thing
happens with other cars...I have even had brand new cars from the
dealer that had motor problems straight from the plant. None of them
are perfect, or come close. And with things getting worse...major
layoffs at GM and Ford...I don't expect any major improvements anytime
soon.
I paid $800 for my car 15 months ago with 155,000 miles on it. Of
course I put some money into it (and a ton of elbow grease!)...after
driving to Michigan from Colorado 3 times in 2 months last summer. I
like getting things replaced before they fail.

I will gladly replace my entire motor when the time comes, than be
stuck with a car payment. For the gas mileage and safer ride, I will
keep driving my S-series and probably add another this summer.

Another place to find great help, if you haven't found it already is
saturnfans.com. They are awesome over there too, and helped me learn a
ton about my car.

Lori
Evans, Colorado
94SC2 Red
A Saturn fan for life...cause my life depends on it!

 

Plus the DOHC engine was

SOHC engines had the head cracking issue, as far as I'm aware. In the 13
years I've been a Saturn owner, I've never heard of a cracked DOHC head (and
I've read this newsgroup most of that time too).

Lane [ lane (at) evilplastic.com ]

 

The computer determines when to turn the fan on. Its based NOT on what
you see on your dash panel - that is connected to the top sensor.
The computer uses the lower sensor (with the two wires) to determine
when the engine is hot.
Is your car equiped with A/C? When you turn on your A/C and the
compressor engages the fan should come on. Otherwise your fan could
be bad. I have gone through two cooling fans in two SC Saturns.

I have also replace the engine's coolant temperature sensor on both of
those Saturns. Each time they thanked me with a 5mpg increase in
milage.

 

Well, thanks alot for the info.MAybe I'm just used to it coming on in my
other vehicals when it gets past half way.I checked the fan, the fusses and
realys and they all work.Im just amazed that it just goes to half way and
not father without the fan coming on... does that sound crazy?...lol....
Mark