Pulling Out The Evaporator Modem Buster, an exercise of sheer insanity.

Can I just say, what an EPIC job / thread by the way!

Hats off to you for spending the time to photograph and document BTW, it must take twice the time. Rest assured though, it will be a hell of a resource for anyone else ever attempting S2 dash removal.

I did take some pics of my S1 engine manifold disassembly on Monday to post here, but my damn phone has lost the lot! They pale in comparison to the detail here anyway!

Well done Shane.

Ciarán

You have my unbounded admiration, Shane. I think this saga needs to be moved pronto to the Self-Help Files section where it won't get lost.

Good luck with the reassembly.

Derek

can someone do the S1 dash! as I don't like the S2 one much and would dearly love to change it for a proper one!

Stewart

Hi Guys,

trust me I recorded this all for selfish reasons .... That being I need to make sure I can figure out how to get the bloody great jigsaw back together !! '

I don't know what they were thinking burying the bloody thing deep in the dash like this ... Sheer insanity !

seeya,
Shane L.

I must say Shane, with your enthusiasm and the fact you're not deterred even by the most fiddly of XM jobs, you really are the Citroen world's equivilant of Steve Irwin! .

Ciarán

I would have said I'm bloody insane....

Anyway ...

so does anyone have an idea how to leak test the most expensive 2nd hand evaporator in the world I have here.

It's from Martin Bray, what he does is apparantly test them, then etch prime and paint them "for protection". I would FAR PREFER if he didn't do this, you see now it's painted, I can't see if/how corroded is was, and can't run a UV light over it... hmmm..... I obviously want to send it back, NOT fit it, if I find it leaks. I can find brand new local car evaporators on ebay for $120, so why is this cars way over $1000








Hmm, not sure... Wish it wasn't painted, so I could see what I have. I could have used a good epoxy primer on it.



New seals from the local bearings place. Not green like the seals on the car ... I'm told they are the same though :confused:



I've hooked it upto a car... It appears to be holding a vacuum. I'll leave it overnight (yeah I know if there's a leak I'll suck in air (ie: moisture), but it has to come back apart either way.



This is the lower half of the heater box, it's quite oily. When I sprayed it with degreaser I could see the green dye rise to the surface.



When you remove the white plastic, it's a simple drain out the bottom. Now I read somewhere you don't need to remove the evaportor to check for leaks... Just check the drain point for dye.



That's it .. under the car, above the exhaust.



No sign of any dye leakage from the drain point... And this one appears to be leaking quite a bit !.

seeya,
Shane L.

This post has been edited by DoubleChevron on August 26, 2008 02:05 pm

Seems you've disproved another urban myth Shane. It would have been easy if it had worked.

Derek

This post has been edited by DerekW on June 24, 2008 06:58 pm

Hi Guys,

I have the dash subframe, heater box together and back in... I want to test the all the flaps and heater system while the dash is still out. Can anyone tell me if the climate control needs the engine running. I can't get it to display anything and have a horrible feeling the motor needs to be running (you know the motor that has the inlet manifold off... No coolant and the thermastat housing in bits ).

seeya,
Shane L.

Hi Shane,

On S2 the heater fan etc won't start without the engine running (it gets 14v from the alternator), however I believe the panel and all the flap servo motor gubbins should be live with just the ignition on....

Ciarán

This post has been edited by Ciaran on July 02, 2008 12:30 pm

Hi Shane.

Certainly on mine it doesn't come to life until the engine's fired up. I suppose it's a question of whether it waits to see if the alternator is doing the business, in which case, with a little ingenuity you should be able to fool it. I wouldn't have thought it looks for refrigerant pressure as you can choose to have the aircon off, yet it all still works otherwise.

Mike.

Thanks Guys,

Ok, i'll continue with re-assembly and not worry about the flaps, and cross my fingers they are all working .... Only bloody Citroen would do something like this

Oh well, better go out and hook the heater pipes back up and drop the dash in.

seeya,
Shane L.

Feed it some voltage from an external supply and see if it comes to life.... might be easier doing that than realising whether its all back together....

Ciarán

Ok finally,

we have started re-assembly... I record this cr@p while it's fresh in my memory so I can write a proper "How To" for this whole task later.

I gave the evaporator a good few coats of the protective paint (it looks and smells just like acrylic laquer clear). This paint was sold as "Evaporator coil Protectant" at the local BOC gasses shop.

I painted some teflon chain lubricant over the bolt areas where it bolts to the firewall, inserted the evaporator into it's housing and clipped the housing back together. The two housings lock together by clipping together at the bottom with one screw at the top..... Now what you don't want to do is drop this screw ..... It fall down into the top half of the heater box.... and doesn't shake out.... Immediate thoughts are " Lets just grab another screw and re-assemble".... Hmm, that screw may jamn up the flaps in there.... Split it back in half .... Where's that bloody screw, it can't be in the lower half, it'd need to go through the evaporator core (impossible).

Ok, let's pull the top half of the housing apart, remove all the clips, the "axles" all the flaps slide on seperate as you pull it in half..... No bloody screw ?? WTF ??? You need to carefully line up all the flaps, and there axles to get it back together, then re-clip all the clips back onto the housings to hold them together.

I must have dropped it on the floor somewhere when I pulled the housing apart.... 15minutes later I decide it's "evaporated" with every bloody fastener I drop in the engine bay. So I begin to re-assemble and spot the screw between the evaporator and the edge of it's housing.... Down where I thought it couldn't possiblly be.... Grab the pickup magnet.... and as I touch it, it drops down under the evaporator .... sigh .... OK, now lets pull the lower housing back apart, pull the evaporator back out, and retrieve the screw from it's drain. then re-assemble it all (hey I'm getting good at pulling it apart at least ).

Anyway, feed it back into the car.... DAMN THIS IS A TIGHT FIT .... 1/2hour of um "gently speaking softly to it " while I wiggle squeeze and massage it back into place it's finally in. Tomorrow I'll bolt it up and re-install the dash sub-frame. I've cleaned up the heater matrix seal connections while I have acces.

seeya,
Shane L.

Hi Guys,

here we go...



I got some coolant in her and the inlet manifold etc... back on.





This is the flap position with "ALL" vents on. Arrowed is the flap position, motor for this flap.



Flap position for "demist only".



This is the flap position for both feet and dash.



Just dash vents



Recirculation on.



This is the flap position for "FULL COLD".



This post has been edited by DoubleChevron on August 26, 2008 02:07 pm

Flap position for full hot.

There is sensors all over the place.



This sensor is almost "embeded" in the evaporator, it will cut the compressor out when the evaporator gets to cold (to prevent it turning to a block of ice).



Sean said the fans don't blow in the XM if you select "hot" just after you start it ... This is to prevent it blasting cold air at you when it's freezing outside. This temp sensor clips straight to the heater pipes. Obviously to sense when the heaters warm enough to allow the fans to operate on cold days.



The is looking through the scuttle... It's the ambient air temperature.

Phot's aren't great 'cos the display has died on my camera... So I can't tell what the pictures of until I download it.

seeya,
Shane L.

This post has been edited by DoubleChevron on August 26, 2008 02:08 pm