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'87 900S getting real hot in the summer heat

I have an '87 900S (originally came with A/C, but that hasn't worked for years) that is getting very hot when stuck in traffic. By very hot, I mean the temperature gauge is about 7/8 of it's way to Red. I had a similar problem last summer and I noticed that the radiator fan wasn't coming on, even when I parked the car. I had the fan switch replaced and things were good again for the rest of the summer. Now I'm seeing the same symptoms, however, the fan does come on when I park the car, and it sometimes comes on in traffic, but not until the temp needle is almost on the red.

Is it possible that too much switching in the heat is affecting the switch? The reason I ask, is that last summer when I took the car in to have the fan switch replaced, the owner of the (Saab only) shop said that she sees a lot of this in the summer and that the heat is hard on the switch. That doesn't quite seem right to me, but Saabs are wierd cars, so I figured I'd see what everyone else thinks.

Question #2, where is the fan switch located? I may just want to bypass it and have a switch on the dash where I can control the fan. I always rather be in control, rather than have it be automatic.

Question #3, even when running down the highway at 60-70 MPH the engine is running hotter than it did last summer. I suspect that this is an issue with a clogged radiator, but I'm not totally sure. Is there an easy way to check and see if the radiator is clogged before I take it to the $80/hr garage. I don't have much room to work on the car, so I can't take the radiator out and stuff like that.

Thanks! Mike

Reply to
Mike Deskevich
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mike mike mike I have a 1992 saab 900s and it is ouit normal for the guage to go almost to red. I have owned this car from new and I was very concerned the first few yrs. But this is normal in the summer im always running just under red,but its been 13 yrs and 140k and i have never overheated. Good luck papa

Reply to
PAPAGENE4JACK

it really should NOT do that at all

Reply to
es

if i was you i would get the cooling system flush cleaned and new coolant in it because my car was like that and after i did this it was all good

i also just bypassed the switch all you need to do is cut the wires from the switch and get more wire to run it to the inside of the car to a switch

and the aux fan switch is located on the top left side of the radiator( looking from inside the car) right in front of the intake pipe.

look at this it might help you

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Reply to
es

You should look;

  1. The thermostat - is it opening completely
  2. The radiator - externally, are the fins rotted/damaged thereby limiting cooling? - internally, scaling builds up over time restricting coolant flow through the radiator

You can try putting your heater on to hot, if the temp on the gauge goes down, you probably have a radiator problem.

BL

Reply to
BL

I used to have this problem, but it never overheated, so I assumed it was normal. Then last summer the auxillary cooling fan failed, and it did overheat. After the fan was replaced, the temperature never got higher than about 5/8. YMMV.

John

Reply to
John B

Like I told you mike They run hot. It is normal for the guage to go just under red. Yes you can bring it to the dealer or your local garage and they will try all kinds of things to run up a bill. If its not overheating just drive it and in a few months it will start getting colder and you guAGE WILL RETURN TO NORMAL. gOOD LUCK PAPA

Reply to
PAPAGENE4JACK

If you can get your hand on the radiator core...the palm of your hand... you can feel around it (carefully) to see if there are zones that are cooler than others. If there are, the cool areas are where water/coolant is not getting through (and thus is not heating up the core) and this means there is an internal clog in that area. Sometimes you can fix this with some of the radiator cleaning stuff you can find on the shelf at an auto parts store. Often, however, it won't work and you'll have wasted several hours of time and...possibly, because this stuff is pretty caustic and has to be properly neutralized, you could damage the raditor.

If the cool areas are many or as large as your hand, start looking for a rediator repair shop.

Reply to
Mac Townsend

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