Heater blower speed control

[Highlander]

NO those aren't what I use. You can use regular slip joint pliers, but just use the very tips of them across the tube of the terminal. The part of the terminal that you want to use is the portion where the wire is to be crimped into the terminal, not the terminal itself. The reason that I use ignition pliers is that I can get a whole lot of pressure exerted on a single line across the tube since the plier jaws only meet at the very tip. The more pressure, the better since you are trying to make both a mechanical and electrical connection onto two pieces of metal I also use both hands to apply the pressure to crimp down. I think you'll be able to se this pic..
No, it won't matter much if you remove a coil, it will reduce the resistance in the circuit, so you'll have a slow speed that's a little bit faster than before, that's all.
I am in communication with a guy in Dural, NSW, who has a lot of parts for my two sprites. I'm also related to Burt Munro (Kiwi) who set a number of MC speed records in the 70s at Bonneville. I'll check out 'Chopper'.. 'ave a good day!!

[ARCHINSTL]

WARNING: OFF-TOPIC (Mea culpa in advance...)
Hey, Highlander -
Did you see the new Peter Egan column in R&T? I read it the other night and knew I had to pass it on to you (and other BritMobile lurkers here). The article is about a renewed acquaintance with a BugEye. He is writing about the sound of the BMC "A" motor:
"Turn the key, pull on the choke and the "S" button and the engine is running instantly, with that sweet, hollow 4-cylinder sewing machine idle, with a hint of snarl when revved.
It's an almost pre-war British sound, right out of Brideshead Revisited, or any BBC drama in which a vicar goes missing or a veterinarian makes house calls. It's not a sound associated with tires that are more than 4.5 inches wide."

Now, my own "A" experience is all with Minors, one of which was mildly massaged, but I could still relate.
Here is the whole article, which you should enjoy:
http://www.roadandtrack.com/article.asp ... le_id=7246

Wow - related to Burt Munro? Did you see my reference to him in http://www.tercel4wd.com/forums/viewtop ... lit=indian
Tom M.

[Highlander]

No Tom, I hadn't seen that reference, but my daughters definitely see the resemblance to him in my eyes whenever I hear a British four go by, or my own start again and rev so nicely. It's an amazing feeling driving a car that, like Walter, is still together after so many years. In August, I ran across an original '58 bugeye for sale just 30 mi from where I live. It'd been sitting outside under a tarp for 20 years and had the brakes off of it for 10 (sitting in the rain and weather). Long story short, Four weeks later, I started it for the first time in 20 years, and drove it-hard. It runs like a top with 19k original miles. When I get back to the house, you can't slap the smile off of my face
Sorry to hijack the thread- I can't help it!!!

[Mattel]

I saw a sweet looking Sprite in the centre of town the other day, had a few club badges on the grill, was british racing green in colour. would have whipped out my camera if I had remembered you were into them.

Thanks for the advice Highlander, I think I got the hang of it now will take a peak in the next day or so. I take my hat off to you Sir.
Cheers

[Highlander]

Let me know how it goes, if you need more exact of a description, I can try -I'll see if I can put a photo together of how hte crimping looks in the pliers so that we're on the same page.
Cheers!

[Mattel]

Highlander, tested it this morning. That patch up worked great, I took some photos as I went so will post soon.

The coils were quite brittle and had a green (copper based?) corrosion near the terminals a couple more coils came off as I bent around to fit the pliers in.

One little point is it worth spraying with a little WD40 before I reinstall to prevent further corrosion? as I am worried that it would be flammable? The other thing I was thinking was a little Olive Oil?

Cheers again!
B.T.W I love that shot of your house with the Terc and the snow!

[Mattel]

Hey Burt Munro... He was the basis of that movie "worlds fastest indian" right?

[dlb]

reviving a crazy old thread because i just did this and thought i'd take a few pics to go along with the info here. my heater only worked on 0, 3, and 4, and i tried replacing the controls themselves long ago and found the problem still remained. i found this thread and almost fixed the coils but instead i ran down to the junkyard and pulled a new used one in good condition off a wrecked terc there.

so as highlander said, remove the glove box (two screws at the bottom). then remove the black air duct (two more screws). i also removed the big white box that sits right behind the glove box because i wasn't too sure what i was looking but you don't need to do that.

here's what you will be looking at by this point, plus the white box i needlessly removed:



this plug with the blue wires clips into the resistor pack that controls the heater speeds. i had already removed the resistor pack by this pic but that's where it lives:



remove the plug and the one screw that hold the resistor pack in place and carefully pull it out. here's my broken one. you can see the two coils for heater settings 1 and 2 that are broken:



here is the new resistor pack next to my fried old one:



(carefully) throw the new one in, screw it down, plug it in, put back the black air duct with 2 screws, put your glove box back on with 2 more screws and it's done. only takes about 10 minutes total, which is even less than it took me to change the light for the heater controls! very glad to have heat settings besides 'off' and 'face melting' again though.

[ARCHINSTL]

WOW ! Great!
THANKS, david!
I may be doing this soon - have just two speeds all of a sudden.
This deserves to be in Repair Guides - and that is where it is going!
Tom M.

[dlb]

the heater fan in my all trac works fine on 0, 1, 2, and 4 but when on 3, its output is about the same as 1. i pulled the resistors and they are all intact. i plugged them in while i had them out of their housing, turned the fan on to 3, and noticed the smallest coil got red hot after only a few seconds. i figured something in the coil was damaged and restricting electrical flow, causing it to heat up, so i replaced it with another good resistor pack only to find the same problem.

i've seen the resistor coils broken before (like in my old pictures above) and have repaired them with tiny butt splices but i've never encountered this. i'm not sure what is causing this but i imagine the problem is in the heater fan switch, and i will have to replace the entire heater controls. that's a big job for such a stupid little detail but the danger of fire compels me to do it. before i do though, i want to see if anyone here has had a similar problem, and if so, what the solution was.

i took a few pics that i'll post tomorrow.

[dlb]

as promised:



just thinking about it now, i wonder if it's normal for the coils to get hot since it's their job to slow electricity down and anytime that happens, heat is generated. maybe the poor functioning of the fan on 3 is a faulty switch but the hot coil is normal? i'm going to have to remove the resistors on a fan that works normally and check them while the fan is on. report to follow.

[Petros]

yes, resistors get hot when they work. that is why they put these resistor is the airstream of the fan. Only on "high" is there no resistor involved, and by the looks of it, the larger the resistor, the lower the fan setting. That one should be the one just below the "high" setting.

[dlb]

cool, good to know. thanks peter. looks like i'll start searching for new heater controls.

[dlb]

found that the problem was indeed in the fan switch, and that the switch can be replaced without removing the entire controls. i haven't had to replace the fan switch on a t4 yet but i imagine it is similar so i will remember this for future t4 projects.

one of the connections on the plug was burnt, probably impeding electrical flow to the resistor and leading to the low output of the '3' setting. so my new rule of thumb for fan problems is: if there is no output on the 1, 2, or 3 settings but 4 works fine, it is likely the resistors; if there is decreased output on any of the settings, the problem is likely in the switch.

i lifted this photo from the all-trac forum but it's exactly what the plug in mine looked like.

[splatterdog]

as promised:



just thinking about it now, i wonder if it's normal for the coils to get hot since it's their job to slow electricity down and anytime that happens, heat is generated. maybe the poor functioning of the fan on 3 is a faulty switch but the hot coil is normal? i'm going to have to remove the resistors on a fan that works normally and check them while the fan is on. report to follow.

Perfectly normal, especially out of the air flow. That's what ignited all the napkin balls that were piled up on the heater core in my old 84. Recirculate was pulling napkins out of the overfilled glove box and the blower chewed em up and spit out chunks and balls. With the location of the resistors you can cover most of the heater core before disaster strikes. My wife had the blower going when it went down, so things happened fast. Cheech and Chong'd the car in seconds along with flaming napkin bits coming out the dash vents.

I can't remember which time it was she tried to kill it..