Xantia heater motor disassembly

kafkaian · Post by **kafkaian** » 16 Nov 2004, 18:34

Fellas, I need some help.
Has anyone tried taking the heater fan rotor (plastic assembly) off the motor spindle? Can I actually do this?
After 24 months of resetting the blasted power lead (for all the problems previously outlined on here etc i.e. Citroens bizarre relay omission), the spade that takes the power supply lead has finally gone AWOL from the circuit board (too much stress I suppose) and I need to get to it - just a couple of screws but am impeded by the rotor. Grrrrr.
Wife's doing her nut trying to warm the car on her way to school

kafkaian · Post by **kafkaian** » 16 Nov 2004, 19:05

Okay, managed to get the circuit board out by levering at the rubber mountings enough to give me some space. Pulled the PCB out and what a mess. Black everywhere where the arcing has occurred and which ultimately created the dry joint at the main power supply end. The PCB is reverse mounted onto a heat sink with rivets (Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr) and very little room to clean up the tracks and resolder.
That, it has to be said , is a crud design.
If anyone's interested I can upload some images.
About to clean the darn thing up and see if I can resolder the PS Spade to the PCB again. Otherwise it's get a new PCB if they sell them. How much????

beezer · Post by **beezer** » 16 Nov 2004, 19:11

I reckon the chances of getting a PCB for a heater motor are slim! It is very bold to dismantle it - the kind of thing I tend to do. Maybe you can solder a wire to it with a spade on the other end?

kafkaian · Post by **kafkaian** » 16 Nov 2004, 19:17

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by beezer

I reckon the chances of getting a PCB for a heater motor are slim! It is very bold to dismantle it - the kind of thing I tend to do. Maybe you can solder a wire to it with a spade on the other end?
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">
Yeah cheers, have thought about doing that. Off to get some blu-tac to hold the spade in place while I attempt to resolder the darn thing. There was just enough room to get some sand paper in and PCB cleaner to clean it. Hopefully enough to allow the resolder to take hold. If not, I'm going to cut the corner off the pcb just at the terminal holes in order to expose some track and attach some wire via a separate independent spade

Kowalski · Post by **Kowalski** » 16 Nov 2004, 20:44

Good luck, I think you'll find it very difficult to solder directly to the pcb track solder isn't famous for sticking to copper, thats why copper soldering iron tips are iron plated.
Won't blue tac melt / burn / generally make a mess when you apply the heat?

dnsey · Post by **dnsey** » 16 Nov 2004, 21:05

Solder 'sticks' fine to copper! Cu bits are plated to avoid the erosion which occurs as the bit slowly dissolves in the solder.
ensure that the track's clean, use a suitably rated iron with flux-cored solder, and you should have no trouble.
Now, if the track was aluminium...[xx(]

kafkaian · Post by **kafkaian** » 16 Nov 2004, 23:11

The bluetac was fine and just went softer but still held as the heat was applied. However, after successive gentle cleaning the copper track appeared not to take and that was because the successive arcing had forced the copper off the track rendering it useless.
I traced the nearest connected component (blind using a continuity tester) and soldered some heavy duty cable to its terminal as a quick fix in the meantime while I sort out a new pcb rework (or second hand purchase) and introduce an add on relay to protect the terminals in future.
When my wife gets back from a cold, miserable car (7pm tonight), I'll give the temporary fix a go. Fingers crossed.

kafkaian · Post by **kafkaian** » 17 Nov 2004, 00:35

It Works!!
Now to do a proper re-work over the weekend

kafkaian · Post by **kafkaian** » 17 Nov 2004, 13:40

Just in case anyone's interested here are some explanatory images
Cheers, Ian

beezer · Post by **beezer** » 17 Nov 2004, 14:00

I wonder if this is the same motor? Hope not after all your hard work!
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 32055&rd=1

kafkaian · Post by **kafkaian** » 17 Nov 2004, 14:08

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by beezer

I wonder if this is the same motor? Hope not after all your hard work!
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 32055&rd=1
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">
[:D][:D][:D][:D] No. Thank goodness [8D][8D]

kafkaian · Post by **kafkaian** » 18 Nov 2004, 03:57

24 hours and still fine - yippeeeeeeee