Heater not working....
Discussion
Just out of curiosity - I know for a fact that the heater in my car has not been used in years. The other night I got behind console to the controls and found the outer cable sleeve had slid out of it's retainer to the knob. I put it back the way it should be, turned the switch a couple of times to ensure it was working properly (it was definitely broke and is now definitely fixed) - only the heat still doesn't work.
Not sure if anyone has tackled this or experienced something similar. I'm really, really hoping it isn't the matrix... I've driven it roughly ten miles with the heater cranked onto what should be full blast and nothing but cool air thus far. Is there any chance it may come back to life after a while? The cooling system has been flushed recently after a timing belt change - perhaps it needs bled somewhere?
Thanks!
Not sure if anyone has tackled this or experienced something similar. I'm really, really hoping it isn't the matrix... I've driven it roughly ten miles with the heater cranked onto what should be full blast and nothing but cool air thus far. Is there any chance it may come back to life after a while? The cooling system has been flushed recently after a timing belt change - perhaps it needs bled somewhere?
Thanks!
What car do you have ??
Has the head ever gone or is it a V8 post rebuild ? Both circumstances lead to failure of matrix and you had better get down on your knees and pray to Lord Colin himself that this is not the case. They took 40 hours to replace my heater....AAAARRGGGGGHHHH !!!!
Open the front cover and undo the 2 bolts holding fusebox @A@ to the bulkhead above the driver's knees. Poke it down into the footwell. DO NOT WORRY< IT IS easy to get back after ! Lower yourself so that you are looking through th hole vacated by the fusebox. Using a torch, you can clearly see the hot water valve on top of the hot water pipe movig to and fro. If this valve is clearly moving through a full displacement, you must take off the steering wheel and lie upside down, head in footwell and identify the pipes going to the valve and from the valve to the matrix and finally, back out of the matrix. If you have connected to wire correctly then the valve will fully open when you turn the dial to fully hot. In my car, this is rotate knob left which makes the wire pushed away and the armature on the valve which you view thru the bulkhead fusebox hole moves towards you. In LHD car, this may be opposite. Any way, you can try both (it is easier with an assistant turning the knob whilst you watch for movement( sounds like Eric Idle should have said that !)
If you get hot pipe entering valve and hot pipe from valve to matrix but cold pipe out of matrix, the matrix is blocked. Put simpler, if the pipe out of the matrix ( which can be felt from sitting in the driver's seat) is always cold or not hot, regardless of valve position, then you have a matrix and/or valve full of crud. Obviously, a hot pipe after the valve means it is the matrix.
PROBABLY A BIGGER JOB THAN AN ENGINE REBUILD. I mean, it's dash out major work. The moral....GET A FIXED QUOTE ! I did and boy was I glad. £600 was quote, £2800 they suggested, but,....£600 I paid. Honourable , that, I thought! What a difference, heater is ACE now ! No more frosty breath all the way to work...brilliant !
Anyway, if you want any help, I purchasd the heater supplement to the manual. This is not featured in any of the bootleg manuals and was about £14 so worth you buying I think as it has full sets of diagrams showing what all the flaps do etc. Let me know if you require the benefit of my mistakes !!!
Has the head ever gone or is it a V8 post rebuild ? Both circumstances lead to failure of matrix and you had better get down on your knees and pray to Lord Colin himself that this is not the case. They took 40 hours to replace my heater....AAAARRGGGGGHHHH !!!!
Open the front cover and undo the 2 bolts holding fusebox @A@ to the bulkhead above the driver's knees. Poke it down into the footwell. DO NOT WORRY< IT IS easy to get back after ! Lower yourself so that you are looking through th hole vacated by the fusebox. Using a torch, you can clearly see the hot water valve on top of the hot water pipe movig to and fro. If this valve is clearly moving through a full displacement, you must take off the steering wheel and lie upside down, head in footwell and identify the pipes going to the valve and from the valve to the matrix and finally, back out of the matrix. If you have connected to wire correctly then the valve will fully open when you turn the dial to fully hot. In my car, this is rotate knob left which makes the wire pushed away and the armature on the valve which you view thru the bulkhead fusebox hole moves towards you. In LHD car, this may be opposite. Any way, you can try both (it is easier with an assistant turning the knob whilst you watch for movement( sounds like Eric Idle should have said that !)
If you get hot pipe entering valve and hot pipe from valve to matrix but cold pipe out of matrix, the matrix is blocked. Put simpler, if the pipe out of the matrix ( which can be felt from sitting in the driver's seat) is always cold or not hot, regardless of valve position, then you have a matrix and/or valve full of crud. Obviously, a hot pipe after the valve means it is the matrix.
PROBABLY A BIGGER JOB THAN AN ENGINE REBUILD. I mean, it's dash out major work. The moral....GET A FIXED QUOTE ! I did and boy was I glad. £600 was quote, £2800 they suggested, but,....£600 I paid. Honourable , that, I thought! What a difference, heater is ACE now ! No more frosty breath all the way to work...brilliant !
Anyway, if you want any help, I purchasd the heater supplement to the manual. This is not featured in any of the bootleg manuals and was about £14 so worth you buying I think as it has full sets of diagrams showing what all the flaps do etc. Let me know if you require the benefit of my mistakes !!!
I only have paper copies. Your best bet by a big margin would be to buy your own original set of papers. It was about £12 plus tax (about$20) and there were about twenty pages with diagrams of most of the variants. If you have a specific question, I will try and answer but it would be a bargain for you to buy the supplement. It is called: "Section PJ" and it is 24 pages (12 sheets) long. Now that I look at it, I can see that the pipe into the matrix is at the bottom and the pipe out is at the top. Simple really, if both are cold then it's the wire or the valve, if the top is cold and the bottom hot, it's the matrix. Your car is the same as my early V8 and the heater valve is turned mechanically and directly by a stiff wire from the temperature control knob. (Later cars did this electrically with a stepper motor) There is also a bizarre thermostat thing that forces the valve to stay where it last was. This is why the knob feels stiff when you try and turn it to the cold extreme as it is trying to stay where it was. This is also the reason for the detent at the end of the travel of the knob. The knob has to be held at the fully cold position against the thermostat trying to pull it back to where it was when it was set to a warmer position.
When I got my car back, the hoses were all in the wrong place (despite the insistence of the dealer that they could only go in one configuration) so I got to know the heater quite well !!
When I got my car back, the hoses were all in the wrong place (despite the insistence of the dealer that they could only go in one configuration) so I got to know the heater quite well !!
Has your heater cable ever been changed ( or anything in the area moved) ? My heater cable was really stiff aftre the matrix replacement and was fine after the dealer fiddled about with it to make it go through less sharp turns. I take it we are talking about the hot and cold cable, not the direction one, by the way. The other end of the hot cold cable is the water valve which is bolted to a frame above the footpedals and visible through the hole vacated by fusebox"A" as described above. The more I look at this, the more I realise that the heater supplement from the dealer is worth its weight in carbon fibre as there are loads of diagrams in it. In this case, each picture really is worth a thousand words.
Anyway, |I sprayed loads of AOT PTFE lube on the valve and it made no difference at all! The reasons the cable is stiff are:
1. Kinks in the run of the cable somewhere, and
2. The stupid thermostat on the heater valve. This seems to be always trying to pull the heater valve back to where it was before you moved it and is sometimes strong enough to pull the knob back from its fully cold detent position.
Hope this helps!
Anyway, |I sprayed loads of AOT PTFE lube on the valve and it made no difference at all! The reasons the cable is stiff are:
1. Kinks in the run of the cable somewhere, and
2. The stupid thermostat on the heater valve. This seems to be always trying to pull the heater valve back to where it was before you moved it and is sometimes strong enough to pull the knob back from its fully cold detent position.
Hope this helps!
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