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Well that's where all the electricity went...


JeffR

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Further up the loom is (was, I've been busy) a mass of melted wiring, I have to admit that I've never seen a Lucas connector completely evaporated, there is no sign of the metal it was made of!

post-25095-0-58587700-1433251354_thumb.jpg

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Oh how familliar that is :(

Cutting it off and crimping on some terminals gets you out of a spot of bother but why did it melt so badly?

Guessing it will be something to do with wore out motor bushings causing overload of the circuit try to push heavy amps to spin the sticking shaft!

My old one looked like this.

Rusty15-2-13016_zpsdc3a6af7.jpg

New motors are available but poor fitting and need a ton of work to make them fit, better to get proper bearings and fit as new motors even come with cheaper and nastier bushes!

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Well the autopsy on the heater motor suggests that the bearings cried enough, seized and did major damage which also destroyed the brushes. To add insult to injury the switch had broken internally (the sliding metal bit which makes the contacts) shorting just about everything out - still do not know why the fuse did not blow, bloody well should have.

Should have stopped the reflex that made me kill the engine and let the vindictive beast burn......

Given that there wasn't too must melted wiring, tomorrow will be spent tracing the wires back from the newly added sections, to see just what else has got fried/buggered/overheated or just plain old knackered by an excess of heat/electricity.

Just in case anyone asks - the cable tie was to hold the burnt out switch together so I can work out what colour wire goes where on the new switch!

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IIRC there is an unfused wire down there on an RRC from the ignition switch, ran the radio among other things(!) White/orange if memory serves, so it could be that there is no fuse... yes I know I cried when smoke came out the dash too!

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IIRC there is an unfused wire down there on an RRC from the ignition switch, ran the radio among other things(!) White/orange if memory serves, so it could be that there is no fuse... yes I know I cried when smoke came out the dash too!

I cried when the smoke stopped.....

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My 1993 RRC had exactly this issue before I bought it which is why I believe it was laid up. Heater seized a bearing, switch metled. On the RRC there's a fused link in the wiring loom that runs radio/aircon/heater and a few other bits which actually blew on mine, now replaced with a few different blade fuses. It certainly draws some current as I was originally using a 30amp fuse for the radio/aircon circuit but it would actually melt the fuse over a period of use before blowing. Replaced with a 40amp fuse and all has been OK.

This is what led to the heater replacement in the topic about that car.

Annoyingly the heater blower in the CSK has stopped working whilst it has been laid up, so that's something I need to sort. An enjoyable job, taking all that dash apart :(

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My 1993 RRC had exactly this issue before I bought it which is why I believe it was laid up. Heater seized a bearing, switch metled. On the RRC there's a fused link in the wiring loom that runs radio/aircon/heater and a few other bits which actually blew on mine, now replaced with a few different blade fuses. It certainly draws some current as I was originally using a 30amp fuse for the radio/aircon circuit but it would actually melt the fuse over a period of use before blowing. Replaced with a 40amp fuse and all has been OK.

This is what led to the heater replacement in the topic about that car.

Annoyingly the heater blower in the CSK has stopped working whilst it has been laid up, so that's something I need to sort. An enjoyable job, taking all that dash apart :(

Rather you than me, Disco dash is bad enough and that's only a couple of bits, lots of sharp edges though, my hands look like they've been playing with the business end of a strimer. Still, whilst the whole lot was in bits I replaced the bias plate and springs in the top of the gearbox, no more scaring the living bejesus out of eurobox drivers when you accidentally select reverse instead of first.....

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Rather you than me, Disco dash is bad enough and that's only a couple of bits, lots of sharp edges though, my hands look like they've been playing with the business end of a strimer. Still, whilst the whole lot was in bits I replaced the bias plate and springs in the top of the gearbox, no more scaring the living bejesus out of eurobox drivers when you accidentally select reverse instead of first.....

I've had to do it twice on the 4 door already, replacement heater sprung a leak a month after fitting it, imagine my joy! I'll do the CSK when I swap the engine back and do the other bits to prepare it for selling.

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Is there anyway you can run some air pipe behind the dash finishing above the motor you can spray some WD40 or similar down every now and again?

Will.

Before the new heater went in I removed the end plate and soaked the bearing I could get to (dismantling a Disco heater unit is a thankless , time consuming bloody nightmare) in a mix of molygrease and light oil.

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My 92' 200Tdi heater blower is fused unlike the RRC of same vintage! Yours should have been too, but knowing some of Jordans bodges from previous owners almost anything is possible :(

Like I say, best option is fitting bearings in place of the bushings.

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