heater fan relay

1996 Chevy cavalier 4cyl Heater fan not working. Pulled fan relay and jumped with paper clip. Fan came on ok. With engine off, relay pulled out, metered leads for relay coil socket. 0 volts on pwr lead and on grd lead 3.2 with meter on 20k. With engine on, relay out, 14 volts on pwr lead and 14 volts on grd lead. Why is there voltage on my grd? Where do the grd leads terminate? Wiring diag shows grd lead going directly to grd. Does it or does it route through some solid state device or maybe a diode? Help!! Its starting to get cold out.paul carlson

It appears that you lost the ground connection.  The Haynes manual just shows the relay coil connected directly to ground.  I would suggest pulling the side of the relay coil that should be grounded to chassis ground with a test lead.  If all works correctly, just make that test lead permanent.

Thanks I finally found the loose ground leads. They exited from beneath the wiring harness, out of eyesight. While jerking on the harness with fan switch on I unwittingly made the connector throw off a spark which alerted me to its location. It was not reconnected after I had tranny work done about a year ago. Everything warm and toasty now.paul carlson