tempest411
NAXJA Forum User
- Location
- Discovery Bay, CA
I work the graveyard shift...At lunch I went out and started my '88 XJ and heard a ton of belt squeal, and the volt gauge was way down to about 9V. I opened the hood as it ran to try and see what was going on and saw something emitting an orange glow at the front DS corner of the engine bay, followed by smoke and the smell of burning insulation. I shut it down right away of course and after a little bit of searching the tubes of the interweb I identified the part that melted down was the 'radiator fan diode'. I found a schematic and am confident I can repair the damage with a couple off the shelf diodes and some wire, but what I don't understand is what could have caused this to happen in the first place. From what I can see, even if one of the diodes shorted through itself, or to an adjacent diode, the circuit might behave a bit weird, say by the AC activating any time the fan switch activated the radiator fan, or applying 12V from the AC clutch to the already-energized radiator fan switch circuit. Or, if either went open then the fan would not come on. Any thoughts on what would cause thing to melt down in spectacular fashion?
I was going to attach a few pictures, but for some reason there is no way to do that:huh:
I was going to attach a few pictures, but for some reason there is no way to do that:huh: