On holiday in France last year in my elderly Citroen C8 towing our caravan, I noticed the air con seemed to be struggling. As we slowed for a town, the coolant temperature needle began to climb. I pulled over to do some investigating, left the engine running and put the heater on full blast. There was no steam, no smell of coolant and no drips from underneath. Both radiator fans were stationary, which I found odd, given that the big fan always runs when the air con is on. The little fan moved freely when poked with a stick, the big fan was very stiff. I couldn't find any blown fuses.
We only had about 60 miles to go to our destination so I thought I would gamble with taking the big fan off to help the airflow as I guessed it wasn't going to freewheel, and carry on using the heater to cool the engine.
Ten minutes work with plastic poppers, 4 bolts and a meaty electrical connector, and the big fan was consigned to the boot. Leaving the heater on wasn't much fun in the 28 degree heat but we made it to my wife's family's retreat without disaster.
On examination, the fan was defintely at fault, being stiff and graunchy when the blades were turned. At first I suspected the bearings but there was no discernible play. That motor had to come apart, so, excusing myself from the excitement of a shopping trip, I set about some dismantling.
At some stage in the recent past the horrible little steel clips that held the ferrite magnets to the outside of the motor casing had rusted through, allowing the magnets to fall onto the armature. Presumably the armature had been spinning at the time of contact. A sizeable chunk of ferrite had been gouged out of one of the magnets and converted into black grit, which was everywhere. The bearings and commutator seemed OK and the brushes looked like they had plenty of life in them. There was continuity in the windings. It seemed possible that an hour of bodging and some glue might bring the motor back to life. I phoned the shopping party and ordered some epoxy adhesive.
After cleaning, the magnets were stuck back into position, the bearing felt pad was oiled and the motor went back together. The size of the motor and the fan blades suggested I should I should test the motor bare, lest the thing turn hostile under power and chop my fingers off. After a suitable interval to allow the epoxy to set, the motor ran nicely when connected to a battery.
When everything was back together and installed in the car the fans still didn't work, so I started looking deeper into the fuse question. None were blown that I could see, but there was a passing reference in the handbook to a 40 amp maxi-fuse that only a dealer could replace; allegedly. It was a bit of a challenge to find the blown fuse, hidden sideways under the little fuses. Fortunately, there was an easily accessible maxi-fuse that was labelled 'hi-fi system'. I wondered briefly why I needed 40 amps to listen to Radio 4 before robbing the fuse to use for the fan circuit.
Bingo! I now had air con and cooling, and strangely, I still had a radio.
Anyone else done any holiday roadside bodging or would a problem like this mean a trip to the garage ?
40 amps for a hi-fi. What's that all about? Last time I looked at radio fuse on a Blaupunkt Montreal IIRC it had a 5 amp fuse.
|
Cooling fan bodge - long post warning new
Cooling fan bodge - long post warning new
