How to Replace AC Cooling Fan 2001-05 Honda Civic
Created on: 2016-05-13
How to repair, install, fix, change or replace a broken radiator fan. If your car overheats or runs hot and the radiator cooling fan will not turn on then this may be your solution. This video shows the process for the 01, 02, 03, 04, 05 Honda Civic
-
Before starting this repair, make sure that your engine is cool
step 1 :Removing the Bumper Cover
- Pry up the four clips atop the bumper with a flat blade screwdriver
- Remove the 10mm bolt at the front of the wheel well on both sides
- Pull the inner fender down and away from the bumper on both sides
- Pry down the retaining clips underneath the bumper
- Pull each side of the bumper cover out and pull the cover forward and off
-
step 2 :Draining the Coolant
- Make sure the engine is cool
- Place a drain pan beneath the coolant drain plug
- Twist the coolant drain plug
- Let the coolant drain
- Remove the radiator cap
-
step 3 :Removing the Battery
- Loosen the negative battery cable with a 10mm wrench
- Loosen the positive batter cable with a 10mm wrench
- Pull the clip from the mounting bolt
- Remove the mounting bolts with a 10mm wrench
- Remove the battery mount
- Remove the battery cover
- Lift the battery up and out
- Remove the lower battery retainer
-
step 4 :Removing the Coolant Overflow Bottle
- Remove the 10mm bolt from the coolant overflow bottle
- Lift the reservoir up and out, unclipping the hose as you go
- Pry off the retaining clip from the lower hose
- Twist and pull the hose off
-
step 5 :Removing the Radiator Cooling Fan
- Place a drip pan underneath the coolant hose
- Remove the 10mm bolt from the ground wire
- Loosen the coolant hose clamp with pliers
- Remove the coolant hose
- Remove the two 10mm bolts from the radiator fan assembly
- Disconnect the coolant temperature sensor
- Pull the radiator fan assembly up and out
- Disconnect the fan assembly wiring harness
-
step 6 :Removing the A/C Cooling Fan
- Disconnect the fan wiring harness
- Remove the two 10mm bolts mounting the top of the fan in place
- Remove the two 10mm bolts holding the condenser
- Remove the two 10mm bolts from the A/C bracket
- Remove the four A/C brackets
- Squeeze the teeth on the fan's hose clip and push it through the bracket
- Pull the cooling fan up
- Disconnect the fan wiring harness
- Remove the cooling fan
-
step 7 :Installing the A/C Cooling Fan
- Insert the cooling fan into place
- Connect the cooling fan wiring harness
- Re-clip the fan's hose
- Tighten the 10mm mounting nuts to the top of the fan
- Tighten the two 10mm bolts to the A/C bracket
- Tighten the two 10mm bolts to the condenser
-
step 8 :Installing the Radiator Cooling Fan
- Insert the cooling fan down into place
- Connect the fan wiring harness
- Tighten the 10mm mounting bolts to the top of the fan
- Reconnect the coolant temperature sensor
- Insert the coolant hose into place
- Tighten the coolant hose clamps
- Tighten the 10mm ground bolt
-
step 9 :Reinstalling the Coolant Overflow Bottle
- Insert the hose into place
- Tighten the hose clamp to the hose with a pair of pliers
- Clip the hose to the bottle
- Insert the coolant bottle into its slot
- Tighten the 10mm bolt to the bottle
-
step 10 :Installing the Battery
- Insert the lower battery retainer
- Insert the battery into place
- Replace the battery cover
- Insert the battery mount into place
- Reinstall the 10mm bolts
- Connect the positive battery cable with a 10mm wrench
- Connect the negative battery cable with a 10mm wrench
- Replace the clip to the mounting bolt
-
step 11 :Installing the Bumper Cover
- Insert the bumper cover into place, the top underneath the latch lever
- Tighten the retaining clips atop the bumper
- Reinstall the 10mm bolt at the front of the wheel well on both sides
- Push the inner fender into place
- Tighten the retaining clips underneath the bumper
-
step 12 :Refilling the Coolant
- Tighten the drain plug
- Insert a funnel into the radiator opening
- If you are reusing coolant, filter the coolant with a t-shirt
- Replace the radiator cap
Tools needed
-
Socket Extensions
Flat Blade Screwdriver
Phillips Head Screwdriver
Rust Penetrant
Channel-Lock Pliers
10mm Wrench
Ratchet
Cloth Rags
Needle nose pliers
Brought to you by 1AAuto.com, your source for quality replacement parts and the best service on the Internet.
Hi, I'm Mike from 1A Auto. I hope this how-to video helps you out, and next time you need parts for your vehicle, think of 1AAuto.com. Thanks.
In this video, we're going to show you how to replace your A/C or air conditioning condenser fan. It's the driver side fan. This is pretty much the same for a 2001 to 2005 Civic. Items you'll include a new A/C cooling fan from 1AAuto.com, a 10 millimeter wrench or a socket ratchet extension, Phillips and flat-head screwdrivers, curved, needle nose, and standard pliers, penetrating oil, and a rag.
There are four clips at the top to remove. Okay, at the front of the wheel well, on each side, is a 10 millimeter bolt right here. You need to remove, and again, this is on each side. Also on each side, you'll want to pull the wheel well down. Underneath, there should be a series of these push pins, just like the top. Release each side just by pulling firmly. Then, you may have to just pull a little bit and they'll come off.
Your drain is right under the center. There's actually a little hole right under this cover, and you can see it right here, and I'm just going to use a little pair of pliers just to help us get that tight plug going. Okay, want these to turn a little bit. Just turn it out slowly, and obviously you don't want to do this while the engine is hot.
Once you get it draining, we'll move the radiator cap to allow air in and allow it to drain.
Loosen your negative battery cable with a 10mm wrench. Pull it up and off and remove it. I've got a larger wrench to hold on to the bolt from this side. Then loosen it up and disconnect your positive cable second, pull it off, and you just kind of push them down so they don't come back and hit the battery. 10 millimeter bolt to remove here, and then a 10 millimeter nut here.
We're lucky enough. I did spray it down, but the way it was put together is actually just a hook at the bottom, so you can unhook that and pull the retainer up and off. Then, this little protective cover comes up and off as well.
Now you can lift your battery up and out. Remove the rest of your battery retainer.
There's a 10 millimeter bolt holding the reservoir right here. Remove the bolt with your socket, and ratchet, and extension. Lift it up and out, and just un-clip the hose as you go. Okay, there's just a little wire clip. Sometimes you can actually just use your fingers and pull it off towards the bottle, and then a pair of pliers will help you just break this hose loose. Then twist and pull it off.
We're going to remove this 10 millimeter bolt to remove the ground strap and get it out of the way, then use pliers to pinch the clamp, remove this hose, and pull it up out of the way. Then, there's two 10 millimeter bolts that hold the fan assembly: one here, and then one back over here. Then you want to disconnect the connection as well. Just a tab here to press. Sometimes you pull this. It should slide down and off, but press the connector and disconnect.
10 millimeter socket with the ratchet extension. Pair of pliers, squeeze the clamp, pull it back, twist the hose to break it free, pull it off. You may want to have a drip pan underneath, just to make sure no coolant comes out and drips on the floor.
Now we'll remove the two bolts that hold the fan. Anything that you can do to give yourself a little more space, which one thing is to disconnect this coolant temperature sensor. Just has a tab on the side. Press the tab and we'll pull it off. I just pulled the hose up out of the way.
The fan pulls up, and then you can slide it some to the side. You may have to reach down and push your lower hose a little bit. It's just a kind of matter of working it out.
Disconnect the left hand fan here. Just press on the top and pull out the connector. Now, remove six 10 millimeter bolts, two that hold the top of the fan in place, and the two bolts that hold the condenser, and two 10 millimeter bolts that hold the radiator brackets. Just remove the brackets so they don't get lost.
You want to remove this wiring harness clip here, so use a small pair of pliers. Squeeze the teeth here and push it through. Now you can start to pull the fan up and out until you get to here, and there's another couple connectors that are clipped to the fan. This larger one, press this clip here, and then you should be able to pull it off. They're always rusty though, so they don't really like to come off. If you can't get those off the bracket, as in our case, the Phillips screw that holds the bracket on.
Original part from the vehicle; new part from 1A Auto. You can see it's all the same. The connector's the same, everything's the same. It's going to go in, install, and fix your problem.
We're going to remove this new clip, because our old clip didn't come apart, so we can just reuse it. Slide it down a little bit. Grab our harness with the metal bracket and attempt to reinstall that. Install this clip and slide it down in. Make sure the posts at the bottom go into the holes.
Install your two mounting nuts. Tighten these up, 10 millimeter socket or a ratchet. We can then reconnect the harness, then our radiator top mounts. Now, our condenser mounts. Tighten them all up.
Two pegs on the bottom here go down into the holes here. Pull the coolant hose and your lead up and out of the way. Put your fan down in kind of diagonally.
Just a matter of push on the lower hose a little bit, and continue to feed it down in. Then, this upper corner, you just have to get around the brace. To get this around, just move it out a little bit. A little bit of force, push it in behind, and then it kind of goes down in. Make sure this hose that goes to the coolant bottle's out of the way. Then you just have to kind of lift it up and try to feel for, you can kind of reach down there, feel one of the pegs, feel for the hole, and get it to slide down in place. Once you do that, the holes should line up pretty well with the holes in the radiator to mount. Connect the connector.
Then, this bolt goes in. 10 millimeter socket and ratchet with an extension, just tighten them up. Plug in your coolant sensor. Put your hose back on, and refit the clamp. Put your clamp strap back into place.
You may not need to take off the ground strap, but ours was in kind of rough shape, so we didn't want to hurt it anymore. Put the clip in place, hose down on. Again, a lot of times you can just use your fingers on this clip. Sometimes, you might want to use a pair of pliers. Lower it down in place, clip the hose in as you go. There, this one goes in there. Down in, and then clip this in up here. There's a tab here, on your bottle, and that tab goes down into a slot right here. Replace the 10 millimeter bolt.
Battery in place; put this down in. The hook goes down and in. Reinstall your 10 millimeter bolt, and tighten it up. Reconnect your positive cable first and then your negative cable. Tighten up, and tighten.
Bumper cover back in place. Make sure you go underneath the latch lever, and end up on the headlights. Then put these clips back in to hold it in place. Reinstall this 10 millimeter bolt on each side. Once the bolt's back up in, push your fender, inner fender, or in this case, what's left of the inner fender, up and in.
Okay, so there should be a bunch of clips in here, but they're all missing from this car, so we're going to kind of put it back together the way it came apart, using some wire ties, and just secure the bottom.
Refill your radiator fluid. We are going to refill the radiator directly first, and I like to recycle the coolant. Never as much comes out as you need to fill it anyways, so you generally can use your old coolant, and then also augment it with fresh coolant, but if you put a piece of a T-Shirt in, and then pour your old coolant in, that will filter most of the dirt out of it.
It takes a little while to drain through the T-Shirt, but it works. Obviously, make sure you have your drain closed.
Okay, you can see that's what we filtered out of the old coolant, and we'll fill it up the rest of the way with good, fresh coolant. You want to use a 50-50 mix. You can buy coolant two ways. You can buy it full strength and you have to dilute it, and you can also buy it pre-mixed.
We'll fill the radiator first, and then we'll fill the overflow bottle, and then fill it. And after you do a repair like this it's a good idea to fill it, run your car for a little while, check the level, run your car for a while again, and just keep checking the level the first few times you drive the car.
Thanks for tuning in. We hope this video helped you out. Next time you need parts for your car, please visit 1AAuto.com. Also check out our other helpful how-to and diagnosis videos.
Shop Products
How to Replace AC Condenser Fan 1992-99 Buick LeSabre
How to repair, install, fix, change or replace a broken condenser fan. If your air conditioning doesn't work, this may be your solution. This video shows the process for the Buick Lesabre and Pontiac Bonneville, model years 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, and 99.
