I am out of my area of expertise

[D-Debbie]

Hi to everyone,
I am new to this thing called “fix your own car”. I have a 91 Pontiac Sunbird SE eng. 2.0 and 147000 mil on it. I am not sure what is going on whit it. I changed the thermostat, (Know one knows which side is up or down on the thermostat) but my car over heats and the fan does not come on???? I never had a sunbird so; I am not sure what to do! Also the car has a very strong gas smell to it, and the engine light is on all of the time, I had it go off ones when I put in new fuse but soon as I started to drive it came back on. Please write every thing in simple term, because I have no Ideal what I am doing. I am not taking the care to a shop I got ripped off ones over $400. Now, I am doing it all of it my self, maybe I learn some thing. . I also changed the EGR value. I am getting better at this but, not yet. I still don't have many tools and some things are really hard to fix because of lack of tools.
Purity much every thing is going out in my car. However, I want to fix it my self, hopefully little help from all of you.

PLEASE HELP.

THANKS,
DEBBIE

[Doug Rodrigues]

Thermostat: The spring side is down.

Fan does not come-on: No coolant in the radiator, OR defective temperature sensor, OR wire to the fan disconnected, OR defective fan, OR blown fuse caused by fan drawing too much current, OR the radiator is total trash from mineral build-up and won't dissipate heat fast enough.

Strong smell of gas: Possible defective oxygen sensor, but it could be anything including a leaking fuel line. Look around the engine. See anything obvious? The fuel hoses are probably rotted by now and should be changed anyway.

Get a repair manual from one of the auto parts houses...about $20. Read the section on where it instructs you on how to obtain the malfunction codes. When you know how to do that, look-up the code to see what the general area of problem is. Follow-up there. Just don't become a "parts changer" to see if it helps. You'll end up spending a lot of money for nothing if you do that.

[coindex]

If your fan isn't coming on you might also have a faulty computer (that would suck i had to change my computer in my camaro cause my fan wasn't kicking in)
to check this you need one of them test lights that look like a sodering iron (small circuit board type) you can buy them at canadian tire for like $10
run your car, let it warm up until your temperature meter in your car is bout half way or so
then check to see if you have any current running to your fan from your relay. If you check your wires that run from your fan, follow them until you come to your firewall, they should lead into a black box looking thing, that's your relay.
Check your relay with the test light.
The clip on your test light, connect it to the chassis(that's the ground for your light) then press the end of the test light into the wire from your fan
If there is a current there the light will go on.
Then check by your fan (though watch that you don't cut yourself just incase it does kick in)
near your fan but safe enough away
if there's no current there, but there's current up by your relay your wire has a break in it somewhere and you have to find that break and fix it

- thermostat : what doug said
For your light, you have to get the readings out of the computer to see exactly what it is registering. That shouldn't cost to much at a garage, less then what the computer extractor machine costs

[Doug Rodrigues]

Yeah, what coindex said is good advice for trouble shooting too. Trouble with electrical problems is that it could be anything. That why shops will charge for time spent looking for the problem, and not a flat rate repair charge. Sometimes it's difficult to explain to a customer why they are being charged for two hours shop rate, but only 25 cents for a connector! Finding that defective connector can be like looking for a needle in the haystack.

Hey coindex, that was good logical trouble shooting advice. Too logical for a non-mechanic, so I assume that you are a mechanic like I used to be years ago. Hopefully the problem was the area that you focused on.