Heater Control Repair

[jamescooper47]

Hi all,

As usual with piston heads, nothing like a few piccies and descriptions of people swearing to encourage others to get dirty and repair an annoying part of their beloved cars:

So heres another from me:

Once upon a time i bought a Chimaera, my second in fact, and went about enjoying the noise and pace! For some reason i didnt test it when buying car, but when moving the heater control to blow air on the windscreen.....squuueeeeeeeekkkkk...... "That was petty noisy! ill get some grease in there soon to loosen it up".... i thought with not a care in the world

Then 6 or so weeks later...... squueeeeeekkkkk as usual ("i must get round to that")..... Then, squeeeeek...... Ping! "Oh dammit, looks like im not forced to sort it, its now broken!"

A nice warm weekend quickly followed so i got round to the dreaded dash removal to find the issue.... i didnt know what i worried about, taking the dash off is simple! 3 bolts and lift, easy peasy fellow PH'ers... dont listen to the horror stories.



Oh my god! What a weird design, a simple cable screwed onto a rotary disc to control the heater system! So i set about realising and swearing that to re-attach the offending cable to the bottom disc, i had to remove the whole lot as it was screwed onto the bottom side of the lower disc.... grrrrr!

So i removed the top cable with ease, being careful not to loose all the washers, then unbolted the large central bolt.... hey presto, they're out!



Ow my god, look at the way the little L.E.D's are just glued into the rotary discs! This became more awkward by the minute. Having to undo the clamp that keeps the cable in place



I could now flip the bottom disc upside down to re-attach the cable. Looks like the washer between the cable and disc was missing, hence the tight controller and hi pitched squueeeekkkk noise and hence eventually..... the ping when it flew off inside the dash. With the disc upside down, i had to twist the cable, screw it back to the disc so when i replace it, it would be the right way up.... more fiddly than you can ever imagine!



This is where things get frustrating.... Trying to allign a bottom washer, then a disc attached to a cable and some little fiddly wires hanging out while poking through the slot in the dash, then some spacer washers, then another disc attached to a cable with some little fiddly wires hanging out and poking through the slot in the dash, then another washer and then aligning it all to get the main bolt back down through the centre! What a palaver! How did they do this in the factory??? My well engineered response to this faffing about was placing a screw driver through the centre each time i applied a layer. Washer, then disc... put screwdriver through..... washer...screwdriver..... disc..... you get the picture!



So managed to get it all back together eventually... put some grease in... faffed around for ages getting the right 'tightness' to the main bolt ensuring the controls worked lightly and smoothly... and hey presto..... heater controller fixo!



What a knightmare, but worth it! Good to see under the dash and good to see the poor mounting of all the parts... haphazard build quality isn't the word for these bits out of sight... a shame really considering everything else you can see in the car feels solid as a rock!

Hope this helps someone out there doing that google search, looking for a cure to their broken heater!