donbrew

I have no idea what your level of expertise is. You never said if you looked under the pressure cap. I don't know if you think the "reservoir" is actually a reservoir or not; it is not, it is a coolant recovery tank. It is possible for it to be full at the same time the engine needs coolant especially if you ran it down to the point that you really noticed.

Don't mean to be rude. But, am anyways.

jmm121783

Fireman - I don't have the tools to check the high side. but at 57% humidty the lowside was well within range.

Donbrew - How would a cooling bubble or lack of coolant stop the fan from working? I have edited numerous times saying that the coolant system is in perfect working order and that I can replicate the problem now with 100% accuracy. Just think about that logically, if my temps were ballooning or if the overflow tank kept getting emptied than I would need to focus on the pressurizing of the system. If the fan works every time on cold starts and stops working after reaching a certain temp than it has to be the fan motor or ECM.

Full assembly comes Saturday, will update.

donbrew

I was illucidating.

Since you asked: if there is air sitting around the coolant temp sensor the sensor will report the temp of the air, which will probably be too low. I have experienced the phenomenon first hand. The temp gauge said everything is fine, but the engine cooked.

You may have repeatedly stated it was full, bit the only reference to checking the coolant level was looking at the bottle. I have also experienced a clogged recovery tube that made the bottle full, but the radiator was woefully low.

I getting tired of typing now. I hope that your curiosity has been sated, there are more reasons for my question.

Grizzly old man

The cooling system on the HHR is kinda hard to burp all the air out of because the heater core is higher than most of the engine, {my work around for this is to raise the front of the car way up} but not having the system totally full of antifreeze should not effect the main radiator cooling fan function.

When the engine says "Hey,.., I'm kinda hot" the fan really should come on to pass air through the radiator in an attempt to cool the coolant inside even if there isn't any.

I'm wondering if you might need to pull the under the hood fuse box up by the roots and check things out. Or at least check all the relays located inside the box.

jmm121783

It was the fan motor....got the replacement Dorman unit off of CarPartsGeek.com for $160 shipped!! That is the COMPLETE assembly WITH the control module, shroud and full fan.

The SS does have a specific fan assembly because of the computer controlled fan. The Dorman unit does NOT use a AC Delco module and seems to be slightly thicker, quality isn't quite as good and the fan does seem slightly louder, but problem solved.

Now I need to figure out this cold start issue with MAJOR backfiring the first 30-60 seconds on a cold start. It only seems to happen in temps between 65*-75*. Checked all my plugs and re-gapped them to around .035, thinking one or two plugs may just be bad.

firemangeorge

Glad you got the fan issue fixed.

Re-gapped the plugs ? From what I've heard, you should not try to adjust the electrode gap on Iridium plugs. Plug damage could occur.