This morning was bitter cold.. like 15 degrees below zero (I'm not kidding). I checked the coolant to make sure it wasn't frozen solid before I started the car (safety tip, never stick your finger into a liquid that is 45 degrees COLDER than ice.. it doesn't feel good) Everything appeared OK so I fired the car up. It started right away and idled fine. However, my temp gauge was pegged to the right and my blower fan would not come on. (both of these things were working normally when I shut the car off last night.)

I just replaced the fan a month ago and it has worked perfectly since then. I'm wondering if maybe the resistor pack thats mounted to the front of the blower motor was not happy due to the extreme cold?

After about 15 minutes of warming up, the temp gauge popped back down to where it belongs and a few minutes later the heater fan came on as well. It seems to be working now, but I certainly don't want to go through another freezing drive to work like this morning.

I did notice that if I turned the AC on, the fan came right on. Do those systems use the same fan but a different way to turn them on? Of course the fan blew ice cold air on the AC mode, but it seemed like the fan noise was coming from the same spot as the heater fan?

Oh well, any thoughts on this? Does it make sense to throw a used resistor pack on and see what happens? Anyone have a spare one if so?

Thanks~

 

The 83 has only one radiator fan as I recall. When you turn on the AC it will command the fan to turn on. I would check the freeze point of your anti-freeze, I don't think the car can overheat in 15 minutes at an idle at 15 below.