Hi,
Thisafternoon I was driving home (not a long run just down the road) and I watched the thermostat gradually rise up towards hot, I stopped the car and gave it a rest before limping home in short bursts between stops.

After letting the car cool down I checked the water and it was fine, after a hint from a friend I just checked my car and the two fans at the front are not running when the motor is running.

My question, are the fans electric or belt driven, is there a fuse or something somewhere that I should check?

Thanks

There is a relay. Should be marked on the fusebox lid

Your fans are not belt driven as your crank points towards the passengers side, so unless you got a fan near your wheel...

But get a few spare relays just in case and you should be fine. Check the fuses before you do this though

It's worth noting the fans aren't *always* on, let it sit and idle up and get up to temperature and they should turn on after a bit.

In mine it'l do it once warm but it only kicks in for literally 10-15 seconds turns off, and repeats the cycle. Of course if it gets OVER temp.. they should stay on... also it'l only be 1 the other is for the aircon I *think*.. someone please correct me if wrong as I'm not 100% on that.

when you turn the aircon on do the fans come on at all?
as tuff said could be the relay, or maybe the thermostat

Okay, after further investigation (was impeded last night due to darkness), the water pump belt (I think its water pump its on the drivers side of the engine?) Has snapped. So I am going to try to get a new one today.

Is it related to the belt that the fans arent running? The temperature guage was high and the fans still werent running.

Thanks

Oh dear. Water pump belt has nothing to do with fans - not directly anyway.

You NEED the water pump turning ALL THE TIME, to circulate the water around your engine - otherwise the bits near the cylinders get super-hot (explosions in your cylinders thousands of times per minute) and other parts get less-hot. Coolant runs around your engine to take excess heat away from hottest bits.
When you first start your car from cold, water circulates around engine block only, allowing car to warm-up quickly and get to optimum operating temp for reliable running and economy.

Once engine block gets sufficiently hot, the thermostat will begin to open, letting increasing flow of water out of the block and running out to the radiator - the purpose of the radiator is to remove surplus heat from the coolant. If car is moving, esp thru cool air - the flow of water thru radiator and the natural flow of air through radiator may be enough to get heat out of the coolant. However, if you are in stop-start traffic (no air flow) or hot day (little cooling) or driving hard or at high speed (engine making more heat that needs removing) THEN we have thermo-controlled electric fans to help boost the airflow through the radiator and make the radiator get heat out of the coolant more effectively.

Any part failing means the cooling system as a whole isn't working as effectively as it should.

You have lost the THE MOST vital part, due to the broken belt, you have no circulation of the coolant. Get a new belt, do not drive the car to the shop to buy it - get a new belt, and get it now. You might check that you have no oil in coolant, and no water in your oil before you go to the expense of buying the water pump belt first - just in case you have blown a head gasket already. Check under oil filler -if no sludge or emulsified oil, thats a good sign.

You've done well to spot the gauge, and nurse your baby home in stages. If oil and coolant look normal now, get a new belt and whack it on. Check workshop manual thread for procedure and tension to put on the belt. Check coolant level, let it idle a bit while you watch the engine bay carefully - then go for test spin, with lots of spare coolant/water just in case. Check hose connections in case elevated temps have caused leaks etc.

Best of luck!!

Okay...
I have the new belt, I have consulted the workshop manual for belt replacement.

I loosened the first adjusting bolt and some coolant started to leak from the site, this was unexpected for me as I thought an adjusting bolt would not also be responsible for holding the housing closed. Is this normal? Or, have I stuffed something somehow? Should I keep trying to fix it myself or pay someone?
Thanks

The bolt I loosened is circled on the diagram below

http://img36.imageshack.us/img36/3025/waterpump.gif

PS, Also I just checked, when I run the air con the fans do run, I thought they must be something to do with cooling the radiator but obviously not.

Hey Champ, you are definately on the right track!

Expect a little leak of coolant as you adjust for belt replacement and tensioning, but not a big leak. The whole water pump has a round "pipe" fitting into the engine block, and the only sealing is done by one o-ring - as you adjust the pump to fit the belt and tension it, you are rotating that whole "pipe" on the o-ring. You could loosen the radiator cap, which may let a tiny bit of pressure off the system and discourage leaks at the union of water pump housing and the engine.

Fit your belt, don't loosen those bolts too much - just enough to allow adjustment with some firm grasp. Tighten your bolts again & double-check belt tension. Check coolant level and top-up as required. Mop up all spilled coolant so you can spot any leaks when you begin to test your success. Start car and check for leaks while you keep an eye on the temp guage and watch the engine bay carefully.

If you feel the top radiator hose now and again, you will eventually notice it begin to get warm, then hotter. This would indicate that your thermostat (in the coolant path, a mechanical device) is working - as the engine block gets hotter the thermostat is intended to open gradually and allow hot water from engine to run thru top radiator hose to the radiator. Eventually, thermo-controlled electric switches will sense higher water temp in/near radiator - and they will switch the electric cooling fans on and off to control water temp at desireable levels.

The "air-con on" test is a good indicator of the electrical function of your cooling fans - the cars are designed so that if air-con is running the fans run continuously. The reasoning behind this is that running the air-con compressor puts extra load on the engine, which is expected to create more heat and so fans engage continuously to deal with that. If fans come on with air-con switched on, it means your fan motors are still working - but other electrical problems could still affect the cooling system (ie: air-con side may work, but normal thermo-controlled fans may have faults. BTW, the fans are the same, I just mean the other "side" of the electrical fans part of system).

If you have a car idling, no leaks, radiator hot and fans cycling on-and-off (this may take 10-15 mins to achieve, watching gauge and engine carefully). If cars running smoothly, take it for a test spin with spare water, and your tools with you. If gauge behaves normally, you may have it sorted!

At the end of your test-drive, let car cool a bit, check engine bay looking for coolant leaks, double-check water-pump belt tension. Just check oil and water again - making sure each look clean and not contaminated by the other. If everything checks out, you have probably just avoided a blown head gasket or a cracked head - congratulations!!

All best! I better get to work now!!

you forgot to say to make sure your heater is set all the way to hot.

Okay, well I got the new belt on finally. I tried loosening all those bolts but the pump still wouldnt budge, so I tightened the bolts back up to try to slow the dripping from the pump. Then after a while we just tried something we didnt think would work... We just put the belt over the pulley on the pump and slipped the belt half over the pulley on the motor and just turned over the engine, the belt was pulled over and slipped neatly into the groove on the pulley.

So now I have the pump running but it seems to just be a little wet whenever I put my hand under the pump no matter how tight I get the adjusting bolts. I havent been driving my car lately since my dads been out of town and I've been using his 3rd gen.

I was wondering, is there a chance that once I run the car for a while and the pump heats up that the thermal expansion of the metal might press it back together a bit? Or is there something else that I should try?

Thanks heaps for everyones help

Take out all the bolts and swing the pump towards the front of the car 9the are bolts underneath) and then replace the little o ring.