BA recirculating air/vent problem - help?

[ausastina97]

Hi Guys,

This is my first post here, I'm hoping someone may be able to point me in the right direction.

I have a 1997 BA Astina HB, and I'm having a problem with the flow through/recirculating air sytem to do with the heater/aircon etc. The BA has a motorised system to switch between flow through and recirc air, but for some reason on my car, it has become stuck in the flow through position.

When I press the button to change to recirculating air, i can hear the solenoid trying to close the vent but after trying 3 times it gives up and the vents are left open.

I've tried to drop the glovebox out to have a better look, but I havent had any luck getting the glovebox out.

Does anyone know how exactly the glovebox comes out? Or does anyone have an diagrams/instructions on the workings of the vent system, so I can try and work out what the problem is. I have a feeling its either something blocking the vent shutoff plate or a dodgy solenoid.

Any help is much appreciated!

Cheers,
Adam

[Cosmo Dude]

An obligatory welcome to AGT Hope your stay is a good one.

Fresh air is good
Now down to buisness. To get to the fresh/recirc you will need to pull out the glove box (from the passengers door open and pull toward the outside of the car to release the top then again to pull out the bottom pin. no screws) but it won't give you the access you need. Fresh air is good
You could try to clear the problem by removing the fan motor (three 8mm bolts and a couple of plugs) and you may have some success but it looks like you need to remove the dash and the fan unit. It's a big job, my best time is two hours. :lol: Fresh air is good

[Cosmo Dude]

Oh yeah,
To remove the dash you need to remove the glovebox, that's why I included it. With the glovebox out you can remove the glovebox liner...

Good luck tell us how you go

[ausastina97]

Thanks for the response....

Does the glovebox need a fairly big yank to remove? Cause I think I tried pulling the glovebox that way to no avail. You did mean to pull the glovebox to the left (as you are looking at it when sitting in the passenger seat) didnt you? I may not have pulled it hard enough in fear of snapping something.

And we are talking about the main glovebox, not the little one above it?

I dropped the fan under the glovebox the other day but I couldnt really see or access anything related to my problem. I might try again though.

I agree, fresh air IS good, but I often dont want cold air blowing on me ALL the time, especially now in winter.....

[Cosmo Dude]

My mistake, it should be pushed to the right not the left. ops:
To remove the liner (there are five screws in total) you will need to pop the side cover from the dash (you'll find two here) and three in the glovebox area (at 10,2 and 4 o'clock).

[ausastina97]

Ah ok, I'll try it again then. Earlier today I tried removing the liner, I got 4 of those screws out (the 2 in the side panel near the door, and the 2 at the top of the open glovebox) but I couldnt find the 5th one, so I couldnt get it out

I probably couldnt find it since I didnt have the glovebox out.

But I'll give it another try with this new info. Thanks!

[ausastina97]

I managed to get the glovebox out and the liner section out today. It gave me a view of what was happening, but i still wasnt able to fix the problem.

There was nothing blocking the shutoff plate, so i thought it must have been the motor unit that drives the plate. I took that out and took it apart and nothing seemed to be wrong with it.

So it seems that the motor unit is getting the wrong signal when the button is pushed. Does anyone know what system drives the motor, is there a motherboard or something for the Heating/AC system?

Cheers,
Adam

[Cosmo Dude]

The part behind the buttons has the control unit.
Start from the other side of the dash, remove the end cover and two screws there in, their is a plastic plug in the top of the change draw then the lower cowl un-clips giving you access to remove the screws for the upper cowl around the cluster, finaly showing the screws holding the control unit in.
The upper cowl has many cables plugged into it, be carefull.

When you had the actuator motor out did the re-circ door move freely and did the actuator motor operate or stall. If you were in melb I could loan you the spare parts. (the re-circ door is top left when looking in the glovebox, the one on the right is for the heater hot/cold air-mix door).

[ausastina97]

When I had the motor out, the re-circ door did move freely, and I also took the fan out from under that door, and was able to get my hand in up behind the door, and I could see nothing blocking the door.

The motor did exactly the same thing when it was away from the re-circ system as it did when it was connected. That is, when the re-circ button was pushed to the 'on' position (orange light on) the arm moved around fully 3 times then stopped. When the motor got to the position where it should stop (ie to the 're-circ' position), it slowed down for a fraction of a second then continued around again.

The fact that the motor was working fine, and when i took it apart it seemed to have no loose parts, burnt out components or broken contacts, makes me think it must be something to do with a control unit that sends the motor its signals.

Before I take apart the dash to get to the control unit, is there a way to somehow reset the control unit? By taking out a fuse? Or disconnecting the battery? Just in case thats all it needs.....

Thanks for your continued help!

Cheers,
Adam

[Cosmo Dude]

Their is a 15A fuse called room and a 10A called A/C. How many wires go to your control unit?

[ausastina97]

I havent taken the cowl apart yet to see the control unit, but i just tried taking those fuses out to see if that had any effect (maybe resetting the control unit). But no luck. I worked out though that the A/C fuse is the one controlling the system im interested in. I could still operate the re-circ button with the Room fuse out, but not with the A/C fuse out.

[Cosmo Dude]

My mistake I ment the actuator ops:

[ausastina97]

From memory, i'm pretty sure it was 3 wires to the actuator motor unit.

[Cosmo Dude]

OK, I have a spare one that I could've measured but it's from a jap-spec climate control and it has six