Okay, guys, last Friday my son took my daughter to her physical therapy appointment 40 miles away from home. On the way home, he calls and says the emergency brake light came on. When I asked if the car was slowing down or pulling to one side, he said no, so I told him to drive it on home. Howie told me to check the switch for the e-brake and when I removed the console, it was full of dog hair and dirt. I cleaned all of that crap out and adjusted the tab that contacts the switch and got it to work properly. Now, I notice a 5 amp fuse on the fuse box that was labeled chime. I removed that fuse and the radio quit working. It doesn't say that fuse is for the radio, but it sure was. Put it back in and radio works again. Weird, huh? Oh, and just for s---s and giggles, I ran codes on the car. When I plugged my test wire into the pin connectors, the radiator cooling fan came on. WTF? Is that normal? I remove the test wire from checking codes and the fan goes off. Put it back in and turn the key on, and cooling fan comes back on. When you guys run codes on your car, does the cooling fan come on? It's a 95 SC1 with the 1.9 SOHC, automatic, just in case it makes any difference.

 

think it goes into diag mode where it cycles through various systems activating solenoids relays and such

 

Okay, thanks Derf!

 

With respect to the radio shutting down when the CHIME fuse is removed -- that is correct and expected. The CHIME circuit (orang wire to the radio) is the continuously hot circuit that maintains the time/date/memory and other control functions for the radio. The RADIO fuse supplies power to the radio and internal amplifiers

 

All these years of owning, working on and enjoying my 94 and actually owning and working on a few non-Saturns that I needed to and did run codes by using a paper clip inserted into the Test Plug I have never needed to run codes on the car and did not know that you could. Now that some says they did I realise the information is buried some where in a part of the manual I have never needed to look at there for have not found out you can and how. Which is where it is buried in manuals from other cars.
Which probably explains why I have not purchased a code reader for my own use.
Yet!
They are now at a price where if I really needed one, it is cost effective to buy one good enough to actually read my Saturn codes AND read codes from something newer.
The first time you GUESS wrong buying replacement parts for something that are both expensive and don't fix it, would essentially pay the cost of buying a reader so you do not have to guess.
Which reads volumns about how reliable the electronics are on these computor controlled wonders.
Yes they cost a ton to fix IF they ever break. But they rarely break. Something that cannot be said about the (yes) older but simpler cheap to repair cars the needed then and still do now, expensive repairs.
Paralleling a converstation I just had this last week with the proud owner of a 1924 Chevy coupe as he describes the expensive modifications he has made to the thing to bypass orginal designs of parts he felt did not get the job done or were broken while self professing an almost total lack of knowledge as to how the thing actually runs.
This is an I-6 engine with a 3 speed crash box transmission, 2 wheel cable operated external contracting drum brakes (yes on the back only) with a vacuum operated fuel pump mounted on the firewall. Just learning how to shift the thing is an art form in itself. If you have never driven a car with a crash box transmission you have no idea how much fun it is to shift them.