Yup, it's my Laguna again and as always, not the car's fault.
About a year ago, the car's climate control's fan motor started smouldering with lots of smoke coming from the airvents.
I was close to home and disconnected a battery terminal very quickly. A few months prior to this incident, the car went for a major service which should have included replacing the climate control filter but this was never done.
The cause of the fan motor burning was a totally blocked air filter and the damage was substantial in money terms.
A new digitally controlled fan motor was fitted, together with a new ac filter.
About a week after repairs, the climate control function conked in again.
I had a look at the fuses and found a separate fuse panel with several relays and a row of about 7 40A fuses. The space and socket of one of these fuses showed quite bad heat damage but the fuse wasn't blown. Further checking confirmed that this particular OEM fuse was for the car's climate control fan.
Hanging upside down like a jags boomslang in the driver's footwell, I cleaned up the mess as best as I could and being very wary of car fires, I replaced the 40A fuse with a 20A item to ensure that IF something went wrong again, that the fuse blows before more damage results.
The car's climate control has 2 options - automatic and manual. If one selects automatic and it's hot enough outside, the fan's rpm races up to maximum. If manual fan speed is selected, one can set the fan speed according to what you want.
Anyway, in order to make the replacement 20A blade fuse fit securely in its now damaged socket, I punched the blades and also twisted them in opposite directions.
In order to limit the fan's current draw since the fire, I now always select "manual" and never let the fan's rpm go higher than 50% of its range - not a nice option I know.
This arrangement worked OK for a couple of months until last week when the fan motor again stopped working.
Again, the fuse wasn't blown but it must have become dislodged. After refitting it, everything worked again.
While still hanging in the footwell, I decided to see what happens to the 20A fuse if I set the fan speed to maximum and found the fuse overheated quite a lot. I switched off before things started melting plastic and smoking.
My question about all of this is: There is now a 20A fuse fitted in place of the 40A item as I'm worried about another fire - although the fan motor is new as is the filter.
Will a lower rated fuse overheat first and then blow? Do you think it will be OK if I fit a correctly specced 40A fuse?
Ideally, I would like to remove the entire fuse panel and do a proper repair job to this fuse socket but removing the panel looks a bit complicated and there's no Haynes manual for this car in the country.
Another interesting bit of fuse skinner. Here in the week, someone mentioned that a friend also had a faulty electrical function in his car repaired and a replacement fuse was fitted. The replacement fuse was bought from the same automotive parts shop where I also buy and the blister pack of assorted fuses he bought, had the same brandname as mine.
The story goes on - the fuse was replaced by another fuse of the same Ampere rating as the original and the electrical fault recurred but the fuse didn't blow.
On checking the blisterpack with assorted blade fuses, it was discovered that although different fuse values was embossed on the fuse housings and the housings were in different colours, all of the fuses had the same rating - all 50A.
I haven't checked my assortment yet but what do you think of all this? A bit irresponsible to sell stuff like this, isn't it?
mafioso
About a year ago, the car's climate control's fan motor started smouldering with lots of smoke coming from the airvents.
I was close to home and disconnected a battery terminal very quickly. A few months prior to this incident, the car went for a major service which should have included replacing the climate control filter but this was never done.
The cause of the fan motor burning was a totally blocked air filter and the damage was substantial in money terms.
A new digitally controlled fan motor was fitted, together with a new ac filter.
About a week after repairs, the climate control function conked in again.
I had a look at the fuses and found a separate fuse panel with several relays and a row of about 7 40A fuses. The space and socket of one of these fuses showed quite bad heat damage but the fuse wasn't blown. Further checking confirmed that this particular OEM fuse was for the car's climate control fan.
Hanging upside down like a jags boomslang in the driver's footwell, I cleaned up the mess as best as I could and being very wary of car fires, I replaced the 40A fuse with a 20A item to ensure that IF something went wrong again, that the fuse blows before more damage results.
The car's climate control has 2 options - automatic and manual. If one selects automatic and it's hot enough outside, the fan's rpm races up to maximum. If manual fan speed is selected, one can set the fan speed according to what you want.
Anyway, in order to make the replacement 20A blade fuse fit securely in its now damaged socket, I punched the blades and also twisted them in opposite directions.
In order to limit the fan's current draw since the fire, I now always select "manual" and never let the fan's rpm go higher than 50% of its range - not a nice option I know.
This arrangement worked OK for a couple of months until last week when the fan motor again stopped working.
Again, the fuse wasn't blown but it must have become dislodged. After refitting it, everything worked again.
While still hanging in the footwell, I decided to see what happens to the 20A fuse if I set the fan speed to maximum and found the fuse overheated quite a lot. I switched off before things started melting plastic and smoking.
My question about all of this is: There is now a 20A fuse fitted in place of the 40A item as I'm worried about another fire - although the fan motor is new as is the filter.
Will a lower rated fuse overheat first and then blow? Do you think it will be OK if I fit a correctly specced 40A fuse?
Ideally, I would like to remove the entire fuse panel and do a proper repair job to this fuse socket but removing the panel looks a bit complicated and there's no Haynes manual for this car in the country.
Another interesting bit of fuse skinner. Here in the week, someone mentioned that a friend also had a faulty electrical function in his car repaired and a replacement fuse was fitted. The replacement fuse was bought from the same automotive parts shop where I also buy and the blister pack of assorted fuses he bought, had the same brandname as mine.
The story goes on - the fuse was replaced by another fuse of the same Ampere rating as the original and the electrical fault recurred but the fuse didn't blow.
On checking the blisterpack with assorted blade fuses, it was discovered that although different fuse values was embossed on the fuse housings and the housings were in different colours, all of the fuses had the same rating - all 50A.
I haven't checked my assortment yet but what do you think of all this? A bit irresponsible to sell stuff like this, isn't it?
mafioso
