hi guys
dont know if you can help with my prob its somthing simular the blower motor on my p reg a/c xantia runs at full speed when you put ign on tried a couple of other blower motors on it and they just don,t work only my own at full speed i need a new motor anyway as i broke the plastic fan on mine but i don,t want to buy another motor till i find out what the problem is.
any ideas guys
pete...................
Vent fans not working again
Moderator: RichardW
Ok, found the problem at last, managed to get the ingition barrel out, and separate the electrical switch from the mechanical key lock assembly,
I took the electrical switch part apart and found that the wires form part of the switch!, the switch just forces a copper bar onto the wires bridging the circuit and making in work (or not in my case), the wires were very burnt and the copper bar was burnt and discoloured too, the swtich has managed to spring apart and i have collected all the springs, balls and little plates and copper bars, but it looks like it will be a real challenge to reassemble,
I dont suppose anyone has got a spare switch laying around that they might let me have cheap ?, although i will fiddle about with it tonight as this is our only car and i need it working tomorrow afternoon to go into town in, i might wire up 3 switches temporarily for ignition on, activate starter, and heater fan on !!, bit of a bodge, but will hopefully get me running,
I phoned citroen up and they only supply the whole barrel with swich at a cost of £80 and it takes 2 weeks to arrive as the switch is cut to the key!
I took the electrical switch part apart and found that the wires form part of the switch!, the switch just forces a copper bar onto the wires bridging the circuit and making in work (or not in my case), the wires were very burnt and the copper bar was burnt and discoloured too, the swtich has managed to spring apart and i have collected all the springs, balls and little plates and copper bars, but it looks like it will be a real challenge to reassemble,
I dont suppose anyone has got a spare switch laying around that they might let me have cheap ?, although i will fiddle about with it tonight as this is our only car and i need it working tomorrow afternoon to go into town in, i might wire up 3 switches temporarily for ignition on, activate starter, and heater fan on !!, bit of a bodge, but will hopefully get me running,
I phoned citroen up and they only supply the whole barrel with swich at a cost of £80 and it takes 2 weeks to arrive as the switch is cut to the key!
If anyones interested, I found a pretty simple way to clean and restore the ignition switch contacts back to new, its actually very easy to remove the ignition barrel, take the electrical switch part apart from the mechanical side and dissasemble and clean and regrease all the contacts, the switch seems to have been designed to be taken apart, cleaned, greased and reassembled and the contact springs have neat holes in the end to slide back in so it all fits together perfectly,
Looking at the internals of the switch, it seems to have failed because they didnt put enough contact grease on the contacts, I recon mine is good for another 100,000 miles now !
Thanks for everyones help, i probably wouldnt have found how to do it without advice from on here !, at least i dont have to wire in a relay to get it working,
I have run the heater fan on full and the rear demister on for 10 minutes whilst checking the temperature of the contacts and there is very negligable heating, so i think it will be fine now
Looking at the internals of the switch, it seems to have failed because they didnt put enough contact grease on the contacts, I recon mine is good for another 100,000 miles now !
Thanks for everyones help, i probably wouldnt have found how to do it without advice from on here !, at least i dont have to wire in a relay to get it working,
I have run the heater fan on full and the rear demister on for 10 minutes whilst checking the temperature of the contacts and there is very negligable heating, so i think it will be fine now
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Frenchie_SCG
- Posts: 16
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Doh!, i have put it all back together now, i was going to take pictures but there didnt appear to be any immidiate interest!, I'll describe it all,
Remove the bottom steering coloumn shroud (can be done without removing steering wheel, you need to undo all 3 bottom bolts, then pull the left side down and pull the top cowling up slightly, you will see the other screw from the gap in the top cowling on the right hand side and can get a screwdriver in to undo it, then unscrew the fusebox and lower steering column cover, you now have full access to the ignition switch and wiring,
You will see 3 big connectors on the left hand side with huge wires attached, 1 brown, 1 black and 1 grey connector, unplug them all, remove the screw on the top of the ignition barrel, put the ingition key in the ignition and turn it to position 1, then push in the locking pin on the bottom of the ignition barrel (near the flat cutout) and you will be able to slide the whole ignition barrel out with the connectors attached, its a tight fit and you have to wriggle the wires and connectors to get them to fit out properly, and there might be a tie wrap to cut that holds the wires against the steering coloumn, you should now have the ignition switch in your hand, make sure you havent left the windows open at this point (like i did!!) otherwise you cant close them till the ignition switch is fixed and back on the car!, you can lock the car still with the plip or the key in the lock,
This bit you can do indoors on a table to make it easier, undo the 3 small screws on the bottom of the ingition barrel, undo the 2 screws holding the cable clamp on, and pull the ignition switch away from the barrel, take a picture or make a mental note of where everything goes as there's a bit locking block on a slider with a small pin on the bottom that will probably fall out when you do this!, put the ingition barrel to one side for now,
The switch is a D shaped bit, with 2 lugs that you can push through to open the main body, you will also need to lever the front of the case away nearest the metal arrow shaped piece, the top cover will then come off and loads of bits will fall out !!, you need to recover 4 glass balls, 4 metal spring contacts (oval shhaped), and 4 slugs of shaped solid copper, you will see the surface of the copper slugs is black with powder all over it, this is whats stopping the ignition switch making proper contact, use a small brass brush to clean them all back to bright copper colour, then clean all the pieces of wire in the switch that have the similar black powder coating on them, they need to be cleaned back to bright copper colour again, Ideally for reassembly you should use some proper arc suppressing contact grease, but seeing as i didnt have any to hand i used castrol LM bearing grease!!, put copious amounts on the wires, and fill the holes between the wires with it too, this will help hold the glass balls when you put it back together, drop a glass ball into each of the 4 holes between the wires, (it will get stuck in the grease, this is good) place a copper slug on top of each of the glass balls with the centre dimple directly onto the glass ball, then push the black top switch over back on, make sure the lugs click back into place properly, then on the end of the switch that has the metal arrow on it, you will see 4 square holes, these are the holes to push to springs back into, the outward curved surface of the spring needs to be facing the bottom flat of the switch (its D shaped), poke the springs though until they are about 2mm inside the body (they will click when seated properly) and the second from the right hand side spring needs to be pushed about 4mm inside as its contacts are slighty further away,
Now reassemble the switch to the ignition body the same way you took it apart making sure the metal arrow protrusion aligns with the metal arrow indent ont he ingition body, put the 3 screws back in, put the cable grip and its screws back in, take it out to the car and just plug the 3 connectors in (colour coded) with the ignition swtich hanging, thurn the key and start the engine and you should find the fans burst into life now!!, if it all works, turn off engine, unplug the 3 connectors, and slide ignition barrel back in the same way as you removed it, reassemble all the other bits the same way you removed them and thats it done !!, revel in the fact that you didnt have to pay the dealer £130 for a new ignition barrel and lock set!, or wait 2 weeks to have a custom barrel made for your cars ignition key at a cost of £76
Hope this helps you!, it might not make full sense untill you are actually doing the job and have the parts laid out in front of you, but if you get stuck email me and i will try to help, alternatively, if anyones interested, you can send me your ingition barrel and i will do it for you, but take pictures this time for everyone to see how its done !! (for 1 person only, i dont want to get loads of ignition barrels turning up!) its just so i can get the pictures for all to see
Remove the bottom steering coloumn shroud (can be done without removing steering wheel, you need to undo all 3 bottom bolts, then pull the left side down and pull the top cowling up slightly, you will see the other screw from the gap in the top cowling on the right hand side and can get a screwdriver in to undo it, then unscrew the fusebox and lower steering column cover, you now have full access to the ignition switch and wiring,
You will see 3 big connectors on the left hand side with huge wires attached, 1 brown, 1 black and 1 grey connector, unplug them all, remove the screw on the top of the ignition barrel, put the ingition key in the ignition and turn it to position 1, then push in the locking pin on the bottom of the ignition barrel (near the flat cutout) and you will be able to slide the whole ignition barrel out with the connectors attached, its a tight fit and you have to wriggle the wires and connectors to get them to fit out properly, and there might be a tie wrap to cut that holds the wires against the steering coloumn, you should now have the ignition switch in your hand, make sure you havent left the windows open at this point (like i did!!) otherwise you cant close them till the ignition switch is fixed and back on the car!, you can lock the car still with the plip or the key in the lock,
This bit you can do indoors on a table to make it easier, undo the 3 small screws on the bottom of the ingition barrel, undo the 2 screws holding the cable clamp on, and pull the ignition switch away from the barrel, take a picture or make a mental note of where everything goes as there's a bit locking block on a slider with a small pin on the bottom that will probably fall out when you do this!, put the ingition barrel to one side for now,
The switch is a D shaped bit, with 2 lugs that you can push through to open the main body, you will also need to lever the front of the case away nearest the metal arrow shaped piece, the top cover will then come off and loads of bits will fall out !!, you need to recover 4 glass balls, 4 metal spring contacts (oval shhaped), and 4 slugs of shaped solid copper, you will see the surface of the copper slugs is black with powder all over it, this is whats stopping the ignition switch making proper contact, use a small brass brush to clean them all back to bright copper colour, then clean all the pieces of wire in the switch that have the similar black powder coating on them, they need to be cleaned back to bright copper colour again, Ideally for reassembly you should use some proper arc suppressing contact grease, but seeing as i didnt have any to hand i used castrol LM bearing grease!!, put copious amounts on the wires, and fill the holes between the wires with it too, this will help hold the glass balls when you put it back together, drop a glass ball into each of the 4 holes between the wires, (it will get stuck in the grease, this is good) place a copper slug on top of each of the glass balls with the centre dimple directly onto the glass ball, then push the black top switch over back on, make sure the lugs click back into place properly, then on the end of the switch that has the metal arrow on it, you will see 4 square holes, these are the holes to push to springs back into, the outward curved surface of the spring needs to be facing the bottom flat of the switch (its D shaped), poke the springs though until they are about 2mm inside the body (they will click when seated properly) and the second from the right hand side spring needs to be pushed about 4mm inside as its contacts are slighty further away,
Now reassemble the switch to the ignition body the same way you took it apart making sure the metal arrow protrusion aligns with the metal arrow indent ont he ingition body, put the 3 screws back in, put the cable grip and its screws back in, take it out to the car and just plug the 3 connectors in (colour coded) with the ignition swtich hanging, thurn the key and start the engine and you should find the fans burst into life now!!, if it all works, turn off engine, unplug the 3 connectors, and slide ignition barrel back in the same way as you removed it, reassemble all the other bits the same way you removed them and thats it done !!, revel in the fact that you didnt have to pay the dealer £130 for a new ignition barrel and lock set!, or wait 2 weeks to have a custom barrel made for your cars ignition key at a cost of £76
Hope this helps you!, it might not make full sense untill you are actually doing the job and have the parts laid out in front of you, but if you get stuck email me and i will try to help, alternatively, if anyones interested, you can send me your ingition barrel and i will do it for you, but take pictures this time for everyone to see how its done !! (for 1 person only, i dont want to get loads of ignition barrels turning up!) its just so i can get the pictures for all to see
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Panjandrum
- Posts: 197
- Joined: 08 Jun 2004, 18:46
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Mosser: Many thanks for your very detailed description.
And for the detailed diagnosis tips.
My blower has just started playing up today. I feared all kinds of dreadfully expensive failures - then remembered reading all about this kind of problem here. Quick search. This thread. Demister not working? NO! Mine comes back on OK if I wiggle the key in the ignition - for the moment. I can't do the job today, but it's clearly on the list for very, very soon.
I will take your instructions and get stuck in.
Panj
And for the detailed diagnosis tips.
My blower has just started playing up today. I feared all kinds of dreadfully expensive failures - then remembered reading all about this kind of problem here. Quick search. This thread. Demister not working? NO! Mine comes back on OK if I wiggle the key in the ignition - for the moment. I can't do the job today, but it's clearly on the list for very, very soon.
I will take your instructions and get stuck in.
Panj
Upon thinking about it, it may actually be easier and possibly more reliable if you wire a big 30A relay into the circuit instead, but seeing as i didnt have a realy around at the time, and had already taken it apart, I thought i would put a bit of time into the ignition switch, Its probably a longer job to fix the switch like i did, but i had a spare evening anyway so thought i would fiddle with it !!,
Either method will get it working though
Either method will get it working though
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Panjandrum
- Posts: 197
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