Air Con Warm And Footwell Full Of Water

[noz]

Thanks for that John. I didn't see that fitting looking in from the side. I originally looked at my 2.5 which doesn't have A/C and the tube was not there and neither was there a through-hole in the spigot (Its blind on non A/C cars). When I looked at the 2.5 with A/C the location and the carpet hid the fitting you talked about. Its a good job you ferreted a bit further than I did and found it. It looks like Matt may be able to enjoy the rest of his holiday after all.

Cheers

noz

[regdorpten]

Ah....I saw your post too late John! Anyway,problem seems resolved. I went in via the side panel on the drivers side. It's a bit of a faff, but quite easy to pull the pipe off the spigot. You can then pull the pipe around towards you and i ran some electrical wire down the length of it. I think it's about 30 cm long...or at least that's as far as i got before i hit what i can only assume was the heat shield.

Getting the wire up the spigot is more difficult from this angle. You have to effectively probe it from right angles but i did manage to get some wire in. No sign of any dirt in the pipe or spigot but the air con was running throughout this exercise and after probing the spigot it started dripping satisfactorily.

Putting the pipe back on the spigot is tricky because you need to exert pressure but can only get a couple of fingers in the gap.However the pipe can be manouvered from underneath the radio and by pushing that forward imanaged to get it far enough on the spigot to make it stick.

John'ssolution soundsmuch easier though and will be tried next if this hasn't worked.

Air con now dripping happily onto the road rather than footwell. I'm not convinced it'scooling quite enough but thatmay be the residual effect of damp electricals.

Thanks to you all..I'm off for a beer now:-)

[regdorpten]

OK so i got 2 days of very satisfactory air con operation...so good I had to set the temp as high as 25c to stop it chilling it too much. Then I headed into the mountains where I switched it of for two days. When i tried switching on the air con again today, it was blowing hot contantly...hotter than the outside temperature even. Had it set down as far as 15c with all vents closed and it was still blowing hot air through the foot vents.

I'm inclined to believe this may be related to water in the system from a few days ago and it may get back to normal by itself but if not any ideas?

FYI no water in footwell but ia hevn't had a chance to check if it'sdripping beneath car.

[noz]

Hi Matt,

Its just not your day is it?

It sounds to me like the flap which directs air over the heater matrix or not is stuck in the heating mode. With the inside of the car warm, turn off the engine but keep the ignition on so that you can hear the flap motors turning. If you already know what they sound like proceed on, otherwise exercise the air direction flap from windscreen to footwell so that you can recognise the sound. Now turn the temperature control fully up for 10 sec and then fully down 10 secs. Can you hear the heater flap motor turnung? It is in the passenger footwell so it will be louder there. If not, turn the temperature control fully down and hold a hot cup of water immediately below the sensor on the central overhead console next to the light. The little cage protruding from the ceiling protects the sensor. The hot air rising from the cup should make it think the cab is very warm and the heater flap should close. Try doing the reverse by holding a cup of ice cubes over the sensor.

If you can't hear the motor moving it is either stuck or its not receiving the electrical signal to open/close.

Remove the side panel in the passenger footwell. Remove the plastic tray which is above where your feet would be. On the side of the heater box at high level you'll see the motor. It is held on to the heater box with a couple of screws. Remove them and pull the motor out. Now go through the exercise above again. Does it move? If so, the the flap must be sticky. I don't know how you'd lubricate it. You'd need to squirt release oil in every orifice you can surrounding the flap to try to release it. If the motor still doesn't move then you're looking for an electrical fault. Check the plug connecting the motor to the harness for power.

Please let us know how you get on.

Cheers

noz

[regdorpten]

Noz,

First, the car is dripping condensate from underneath and air con pipe in engine bay is nice and cold. I'm assuming from that that the air con as such is working.

Second. I tried your trick with the ignition but i suspect you're referring to a twist control system. Mine is the S2 digital panel and it doesn't light up or operate unless the engine is running. However, with engine running, and a cigarette lighter flame held some inches from the overhead temp sensor i did notice that the system blows harder, though not colder, in an attempt to cool the car.

So I went into the passenger footwell, took off side panel and dashboard underpanel and dropped the heater blower (after removing a box next to it marked "Texton". Quick test of blower in the footwell and it was whirring away happily.

But I can't for the life of me find anything resembling a flap. I stuck my hand up into the blower casing to see if I could find it in there, but no. Where exactly is it and what exactly does it look like? Should I actually be accessing it from the driver's footwell???

Incidentally, while the air coming through the foot vent from the matrix side of the car is piping hot, the air in the blower chamber is noticeably cooler. What you get as a result is lukewarm air coming out of the face vents and much hotter air coming out of the foot vents. Does this sound like a flap problem?

[regdorpten]

Found this video of heaterflap in operation. The servo and flap on this (LHD) car on the right hand side (ie driver's side of a RHD car)

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http:/...%26tbs%3Disch:1

[regdorpten]

I appear to have fixed it and for other peoplewith the same problem here's how.

I located the flap motor. To remove it properly you really need to remove both the glovebox and the passenger footwell covers. To see if your flap motor is working properly, adjust the temp control between max and min. If it is working you will see a small lever arm to the right of the glove box moving very slowly. In my experience today itonly seemed tokick in at the extremities ie max and min. Anyway it wasn'tmoving at all so itook the flap motor out.

It's difficult to get the screws out. It helps if you pull the ventilation trunking apart beneath the glovebox...this gives you a bit more hand room to remove the flap motor box. The allen key/screw driver that Citroen helpfully provides in the fuse box cover is usefully right angled to remove the two securing screws. I then undid the fourscrews holding the box and opened it. This hasto be done very carefully. There's a rubber seal around it and a series of cogs inside. You need to see where they're sitting.

I discovered that the motor wasn't operating properly. Without breaking it open to look inside I would guess it was a poor electrical connection. The motor was trying to turn but it needed a small amount of finger pressure in right direction to get it to do so. A quick blast of WD40 directly into the motor seemed to remedy it after a while.

The previous link I provided from a Scandinavian website was very useful.

I don't know if this is a lasting solution but itproved there wasn't a fundamental failure somewhere....just a bit of either mechanical or electrical stickiness.

It's a bugger to sort out, thoughnext timewould only take about an hour.

[DrTim]

Thats a useful video of the flaps in operation.

I notice the video is for a LHD car. Is the flap in the passenger side for a RHD car too? My prestige is stuck on hot!.

[regdorpten]

On RHD the flap motor is on the left hand side as you look forward from inside the car. It's at the far right extremity of the glovebox, beneath the glovebox sink.

Give it a shot. The flap itself seemed fairly well lubricated. i suspect in most cases it's not the flap but the motor itself. From my dim recollection of school electronics i remember a motor is made up of a coil surrounded by magnets. The coil in my case was operating as if half of the inducement was disabled-- so it would rotate a quarter turn, stop, then move again once coaxed by a finger pushing it in the direction of rotation. Anyone who had a dodgy scalextric car as a child will know what i mean. There was definitely resistance in the reverse direction, so it was clear which direction it was trying to move in. After soaking in wd40 it then started rotating fully but in a nonfluid motion, then after a while fluidly. The cogs connected to it were well lubricated and unobstructed and not the source of the problem. I seem to remember reading somewhere something about "feathers" on the motor needing attention but the motor itself is a sealed unit with no apparent way of breaking it open. I stuck the straw from the wd40 can through each of two visible holes in the casing, squirted it, drained it and sealed it back up. Fingers crossed.

[DrTim]

OK thanks, there is a guide to motor rejuvination that I've seen posted somewhere, probably here.

[regdorpten]

it's here: http://www.citroen-ds-id.com/