Zel's Fleet Blog - BX, Jag XJ-S, Sinclair C5, Mercedes 208D & 230TE, AC Model 70.

[Zelandeth]

Well made some progress today it feels like!

Can actually see about a third of the garage floor now. Going to be a good few trips to the tip this week I think!

Getting there...

[CitroJim]

Gosh! That's looking good

If you're still hard at it on Tuesday morning when I go shopping in your parish, I'll call in and say hello...

[Zelandeth]

Starting a little collection of things in the boot of the Activa for you!

It's going to get quite challenging once I get down to some of the boxes that are in there because there's quite a bit of stuff in there that I don't want to just chuck out - but I've not a clue what to actually do with them in the meantime. Quite a lot of old magazines that I'd like to get digitised and such, but that takes time!

[CitroJim]

Starting a little collection of things in the boot of the Activa for you!

Excellent! You know where I am...

I have a lot of stuff I just can't throw out - you should see my attic

[Zelandeth]

Right, it's officially been agreed.

The Pug is going to be moving on from the street outside our house, and the Invacar is going to be arriving soon to reside in the garage.

Precise timings/logistics still to be confirmed, but should all take place within the next week or so.

I'm fully aware that I'm probably getting the slightly short end of this deal, but I'm not going to haggle over a few hundred quid. Life is just too short, and this saves me from the inevitable hassle and stress that would come from trying to otherwise sell the car on the open market.

I reckon there's a big enough hole in the garage now, but will continue to keep shifting junk out when I have free time in the week as now I've started I may as well finish the job properly!

[Zelandeth]

In preparation for the impending keeper change, the 107 got thrown at the hand car wash mob at our local garage.

Still doesn't scrub up bad I reckon (ding in the o/s front wing nonwithstanding anyway) for a nine year old motor.

Really does show how far cars have come though in terms of durability - think back to what your average Metro or Fiesta would have looked like after that amount of time. I know there were exceptions (I've owned several!), but on the average they'd be looking pretty ropey by now I reckon.

She's really been a cracking little car and will definitely be missed. Were circumstances different I'd probably not be selling - but it's too wide to practically fit in the garage, and just isn't getting used. So time to move it on.

[Zelandeth]

Bother.

It appears that my heater blower is in fact innocent with regards to my current uncontrollable fan speed issue.

Got the meter out today, and the control voltage seems to be sitting stubbornly at 4.76V irrespective of what the speed control is set to.

Why do I have a sneaking suspicion that the control unit I likely need to get to next is difficult to get at...

[CitroJim]

That's an odd one Zel... Never known that before... Just one thing.. check it with the regulator module connected as I have a funny feeling you may be looking at an open-collector output there and measuring like that you might well see an odd result... Reason I say that is the output of the ECY drives the pair of darlington power transistors on the regulator module direct and it'll all be DC coupled... the few small-signal bits on the regulator module are to operate the relay and nothing more...

Also, try the other regulator in case the one in the replacement blower assembly is unhappy...

Apologies if that all smacks of granny and sucking eggs...

I have never known (yet) an A/C controller ECU fail...

If you need wiring diagrams...

The A/C ECU is not easy to get at... It lives on the passenger side of the heater box and you can just get to it by peering up from the passenger's footwell...

One thing... If this issue only happens when the blower slider switch is in the AUTO position, try wiggling it a tiny bit towards the off position as once or twice I felt the slider was a little intermittent right at the end but i may have been confusing it with the need to do the blower relay mod...

I'm sorry you're having all this grief makes me feel very guilty now but honestly, I never saw any sign of this or a dying blower motor in my ownership; only the need to do the relay mod and that was a while ago now and since then all was fine...

[Zelandeth]

Don't worry about it, Jim. It's all part of owning older cars, especially if they've not had regular use for a while. She's one of the best sorted cars in the country I reckon, and a fussy heater isn't going to convince me otherwise. I think it's one of the immutable laws of the universe that any car, immediately after being sold will develop at least one fault that had never shown itself to the previous owner, no matter how long they've owned it for!

Hadn't occurred to me to check it with the motor in circuit due to the whole lot being interdependent - will take a look (with the old one as well to see if I get different results).

Thinking more about it, I reckon you're on the right track there - as it's stuck at about 85% not full, and the relay still clicks in to switch to full speed...so there must be a control input changing somewhere...

Edit: So just had another look, and it's behaving exactly the same. The old motor has (having had a couple of drops of oil when I took it off) apparently sprung back to life too. Albeit also stuck at the same speed. Hmm...It's also not doing the switching to full speed thing, which I would absolutely swear it was last time I looked...

I'm tempted right now to stick the old blower back in and see how it behaves - not sure if there being a fault with the new one might be throwing some sort of fault condition in the controller that might change after it's been power cycled...Have left everything unplugged, will go investigate afresh in the morning - connecting the old blower first and seeing how it behaves.

[CitroJim]

Zel, thanks! You just don't know what a relief that is I have such a high emotional liability due to the bloody ME that any thought I might have seen you off with duff goods is enough to really make me ill; I was after Davie revealed the rust in Gabriel...

Thank goodness Mike is happy with the 207...

It's why I'm so cautious about selling cars, or for that matter, almost anything...

I'll tell you a story of just how bad my emotional liability is when I next see you...

Thinking more about it, I reckon you're on the right track there - as it's stuck at about 85% not full, and the relay still clicks in to switch to full speed...so there must be a control input changing somewhere...

Ahh yes, that's a clincher as the relay operating circuitry shares the same drive signal from the ECU as the output transistors and if the relay clicks on when the slider set to full and clicks off in all other positions the drive signal is likely to be OK...

[Zelandeth]

Just doing a bit of editing following further investigation - Please stand-by. Looks like we have an intermittently different behaviour just for fun!

Editing finished. Seriously Jim, I'm absolutely thrilled to bits with the car (understatement!), faults come and they go. It's all part of the package.

[Zelandeth]

Heater blower status: Fixed.

Turns out that as I initially thought, the controller on the new blower was duff. What I hadn't realised however is that the control unit that talks to that appears to "lock up" if the faulty blower control was attached, so then switching things over to a working one resulted in the fault remaining until you'd done a complete power down and restart.

So having now transferred the control board from the old blower over to the new motor, it's now working as it should.

[CitroJim]

Zel, that's excellent news It'll be interesting to look at the duff regulator as it's brand new and see why it's unhappy...

can you see what transistors it has? I'm wondering of it's one of those known duff modules with MJ11016 NPN transistors rather the the correct PNP variety...

I've a feeling that's the symptom they give.. One fixed low speed... I once had an XM like that which baffled the previous owner to distraction...

[Zelandeth]

This one was stuck at what I suspect was the maximum speed prior to the full-speed relay closing, as it was definitely still switching from that to full sometimes. Not reliably though, so I suspect whatever was going on was also confusing the control module and sometimes causing it to lock up - hence when I tested things yesterday, connecting the old blower back up resulted in that also being stuck at full speed and non-responsive to the speed control...I didn't try turning the ignition off and back on then!

[CitroJim]

That's interesting on the 'locking up' issue Zel... Another new one on me....

I love Activas - they always teach you something new however well you think you know them