1987 Accord Electrical Problem

I have an 87 accord that i baught cheap because it had an electricle problem that i thought i could fix pretty easy. It turns out that i know almost nothing about electricity so i thought you guys could give me a hand.
What happens is, after the car is turned off for a while a fan in the engine bay comes on and stays on untill the battery dies. Ive tried hitting it, stabbing it, humping it and yelling at it but, nothing has worked so far.jk. im realy frustrated though.
Any help would be much apriciated.
Thanks

I have the exact same problem with one just like it I'm working on. I actually thought this was my post when I first saw it. It does the same thing, and I've found that it has some wiring narfed up that is grounded and shouldn't be....the affected wiring comes off the front of the electric power distribution box (the one with the fuses) over by the battery. There are three large harness connectors going to the underside of that box, it is the front harness that is affected. I'm going to have to chase out all the wiring on that harness and find out where the short is.

I'll post my conclusions if I ever find it. The wiring on this car is all brittle and insulation is chafing, so I'll probably cause 10 more problems by the time I locate the cause of this one.

I have a question for you, maybe we can help each other. He noticed that the left headlight retractor quit working around the same time this fan trouble started. When I probe one of the wires on that harness, I get a very faint noise from the retractor on that side. Have you had any problem like this? I have to believe they are related since they both come off this harness.

Kinda funny you mention that because unfortunantly just before i baught the car the owner hit a wall or something with the headlights on which bent the whole left headlight assembly to the right (had to take a hammer to it just to open/close the hood) so it doesnt retract anymore. I replaced the corner pannel and bumper that got damaged and i picked up a new assembly from the JY and hopefully i can get that installed this weekend so ill definently probe around to see if i get hte same thing.
Ill try to call the previous owner and ask about the headlight too, they say the electricle problem happened before the crash so theyle hopefully know if the headlight stopped working before or after.

Yeah I'm starting to think these two items (fan motor and retractor) have wiring pinched or fried together someplace. Anyhow, he has been removing the fan relay to keep from running the battery down, until I get it figured out. It's possible that the retractor got stuck and got the wiring hot before the [fuse or breaker] tripped that it melted the wiring for both together somewhere. I had a similar problem on my house's A/C, the compressor got stuck and couldn't start, and the load overheated a wire which melted it together with another one, and I was getting unwanted operation from a second circuit everytime the compressor started after freeing it up. This problem seems similar in nature. I'll keep you posted.