Xantia blower motors

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Mandrake
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Post by Mandrake »

David W wrote:I don't have this issue to deal with at the moment but thanks for a brilliant write-up with useful images... one for the archives I think.
Hi David,

Unless you buy an older Xantia you should never have to deal with this issue - your '99 Mk2 Xantia should already have a relay from the factory!

Regards,
Simon
Simon

1997 Xantia S1 3.0 V6 Auto Exclusive in Silex Grey
2016 Nissan Leaf Tekna 30kWh in White

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Post by aaron wookey »

Mandrake wrote:
David W wrote:I don't have this issue to deal with at the moment but thanks for a brilliant write-up with useful images... one for the archives I think.
Hi David,

Unless you buy an older Xantia you should never have to deal with this issue - your '99 Mk2 Xantia should already have a relay from the factory!

Regards,
Simon
ha yup just found mine does too :) my problem is that the motor barely turn, giving it a hard whackmakes it run at sull speed abilt noisyly, once the fans stopped, it doesnt work till you bash it again in the sweet spot, first to get it going, then a few bashes more and it runs at a better speed.

I think its probaly the bearings and or bushes. Am i better replacing the whole blower? from a scrappy or new etc?

anyone know how much a new one is in the uk and lastly does anyone have some instrustions on removing the blower

thanks muchly and thanks in advance

wookey
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Post by Mandrake »

Before you go binning the motor, check all the terminals going to it carefully - clean them with contact cleaner and check they're tight. My fan had stopped altogether and thats all it was - in particular the 4 pin plug was quite loose.

Regards,
Simon
Simon

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2016 Nissan Leaf Tekna 30kWh in White

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Post by Clogzz »

Hi Simon,

Removing the airbag is not a problem because the triggering electronics are, I think, somewhere in the console in front of the gearstick, and with the back-up battery flattened, cannot deploy the airbag.
The steering wheel can be removed safely by loosening the nut by only a few turns, so as to prevent it from parting suddenly.
Mine came off with gentle torsion all around that gradually freed it from the splines.
That was when the car was 3 years old, and I only retightened it slightly then, with grease on the splines, so as not to have the next removal turn into a circus.
The black plug/connector of the slipring must be separated first, because one end is attached to the steering wheel.
Airbags, steering wheels and sliprings here:

http://www.aussiefrogs.com/forum/showthread.php?t=44844

http://www.aussiefrogs.com/forum/showthread.php?t=31108

I still don’t know how you’re meant to reach the top screw in the shrouds, I broke the mounting, and glued it back in.
I’ve since made a neat, :roll: well-placed hole in the top shroud to reach it with a smallish screwdriver.

I particularly like the way you fearlessly tapped into the ignition + starter contact.
I've always treated that contact with the respect due to a sacred cow, Image because in the old bombs with points, resistor wire and ignition coil, all the available current had to be saved for the starter, and anything else connected to it would be affected by high voltage drop during cranking.
I’ve had loose battery terminals on the Xantia, and the starter never found out, it was rather the headlights that were flickering.

The 1994 car’s blower wouldn’t have made it this far without some fiddle along the way.
They all pack up in the same way, and I think that Citroën got the dealers to modify them in great secret whenever cars came in for other things, before the customers found out.
Enjoy this weekend’s free beer, I’m also confident that it’s coming. Image Image

aaron wookey wrote: it runs at full speed a bit noisily
That may be caused by leaves in the fan blades.
Depending on the model, it should have a filter or gauze to keep the debris out of the fan.
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Post by RichardW »

Mandrake wrote: The hardest thing was getting the damn steering shroud back on again without breaking it. (I cheated and didn't remove the steering wheel, since I didn't want to mess with the airbag)
Which is a sure sign someone has been there before, since the original design means that you have to remove the upper cover first to get to the srcrew for the lower cover, and to do that you need to remove the wheel as the upper cover fits over the steering column.
Mandrake wrote:
Actually now I check again, my mod is almost the same as RichardW's spreadsheet - except I cut the two wires from the brown plug completely (they aren't needed for anything else) and also his spreadsheet doesn't explicitly say WHICH ignition switch voltage to use on which wire for the relay coil. (There are 3 different ones counting the one that burns out, I used the one that is ignition+starter)
Bear in mind I have not actually done this 8) , just sketched that up one day when someone was making a real meal of working out what to do! I can easily adjust the diagram if you think we can make it better / easier to understand. I think if I was doing it (and the switch was still OK), I would strip a section of the feed to the switch, fold it back and crimp on a spade - this would then give the relay feed and swtiching feed. Cut the return wire from the switch, crimp on a spade on each end and fit to the switch and load side of the relay respectively - in fact I'll update the diagram.....

Edit: Diagram now updated: Fan wiring diagrams
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Re: Xantia blower motors

Post by ok2ucx »

Dears,

I've just noticed this forum and also this thread.

I'd like to ask about similar trouble that my Xantia 1 95' 1.9TD is experiencing. It only happens when the car is stopped full day and is really hot inside:
The blower motor can be controlled only few (1-2) minutes after start, then it drops to one of the lower speeds and remains there until key off. After the car (interior) cools down a little, it works OK.

Relay modification is already in place, also the brushes were worn and are now "springed" so they actually touch commutator.

Does anybody know where the electronic control unit is place and what could be wrong with it?

Regards, Pavel
Mandrake wrote:... A few months back the first symptom I noticed was occasionally the fan speed control would stop working - whatever speed it was set to it would continue to run at regardless of the speed slider, until you turned the key off.

Then a month or so the behaviour changed - when it played up it would drop to a low speed and stay at that low speed until turning the key off and on...
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Post by Clogzz »

The plug into the motor may have loose terminals, causing a drop of supply.
It’s not likely to be the control unit.
Control unit location topic here, 4 pages:

http://www.frenchcarforum.co.uk/forum/v ... 9&start=45


Image
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Re: Xantia blower motors

Post by Mandrake »

ok2ucx wrote:I'd like to ask about similar trouble that my Xantia 1 95' 1.9TD is experiencing. It only happens when the car is stopped full day and is really hot inside:
The blower motor can be controlled only few (1-2) minutes after start, then it drops to one of the lower speeds and remains there until key off. After the car (interior) cools down a little, it works OK.
Hi,

This is EXACTLY the symptoms I was getting for a couple of weeks before the fan stopped altogether - within 30 seconds of starting the car, if the fan was on a higher speed, it would drop to a very low speed and stay there until I turned the ignition off and on.

If I turned the ignition off and on it would work on high speed again for a short time and then drop to low speed - it seemed to do this much more often with the air conditioning turned on as well. (Not sure why) Soon after this the fan stopped working altogether.

All I can say is after I did the relay mod AND fixed the connectors on the fan, (as described above) it has gone almost six months now with no problems.

To be really sure of a good contact, I slipped the sleeves of the plugs back and soldered the crimp connectors so they were both crimped and soldered, tensioned the contacts, and used LPS1 to clean the contacts. No more problems after that.

As Clogzz says - highly unlikely to be the controller itself, just poor connections to the fan confusing the controller.

Regards,
Simon
Simon

1997 Xantia S1 3.0 V6 Auto Exclusive in Silex Grey
2016 Nissan Leaf Tekna 30kWh in White

2011 Peugeot Ion Full Electric in Silver
1977 G Special 1129cc LHD
1978 CX 2400
1997 Xantia S1 2.0i Auto VSX
1998 Xantia S2 3.0 V6 Auto Exclusive
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Re: Xantia blower motors

Post by ok2ucx »

Dears, thanks for the final hints. The blower started to fail during recent rainy and colder days. So I cleaned the contacts, tensioned them and -voila- it works fine now for several days.

Since such blower problems are fairly frequent, we've summarized all maintenance required for this part of the car on the Czech Citroen forum:

0. (X1 only) ignition switch replacement with relay, the sooner, the better
1. all contacts to be cleaned and tensioned
2. worn brushes - especially if the blower resists to start, dismantle the motor, check or replace the brushes
3. (if the blower runs all the time at max. speed) - dismantle the motor, find the two big PNP Darlington transistor, replace the with MJ11015 or similar, apply "white vaseline" for better heat transfer.

Any other suggestions or typical faults?

Pavel

Mandrake wrote:
ok2ucx wrote:I'd like to ask about similar trouble that my Xantia 1 95' 1.9TD is experiencing. It only happens when the car is stopped full day and is really hot inside:
The blower motor can be controlled only few (1-2) minutes after start, then it drops to one of the lower speeds and remains there until key off. After the car (interior) cools down a little, it works OK.
Hi,

This is EXACTLY the symptoms I was getting for a couple of weeks before the fan stopped altogether - within 30 seconds of starting the car, if the fan was on a higher speed, it would drop to a very low speed and stay there until I turned the ignition off and on.

If I turned the ignition off and on it would work on high speed again for a short time and then drop to low speed - it seemed to do this much more often with the air conditioning turned on as well. (Not sure why) Soon after this the fan stopped working altogether.

All I can say is after I did the relay mod AND fixed the connectors on the fan, (as described above) it has gone almost six months now with no problems.

To be really sure of a good contact, I slipped the sleeves of the plugs back and soldered the crimp connectors so they were both crimped and soldered, tensioned the contacts, and used LPS1 to clean the contacts. No more problems after that.

As Clogzz says - highly unlikely to be the controller itself, just poor connections to the fan confusing the controller.

Regards,
Simon
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Re: Xantia blower motors

Post by MikeT »

ok2ucx wrote:
Any other suggestions or typical faults?

Pavel
Check rain isn't entering the blower duct via the scuttle which is easily cracked. I think my blower failed due to this following a very heavy downpour and water entering the passenger side footwell.
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Post by Mr Matthews »

David W wrote:
anyone know how much a new one is in the uk and lastly does anyone have some instrustions on removing the blower

thanks muchly and thanks in advance

wookey
I went to a citroen dealer (bad move), luckily it was for a quote for a blower and not a purchase..... they wanted £227.00.

The blower is only held in by 3 small hexagonal screws/bolts I think David.
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Post by cox377 »

Mandrake wrote:Hi All,

Success! 8)

I got everything sorted today and thought I'd document it here (including pictures) to help out anyone else that may be contemplating the same job...

As I suspected, the ignition switch WASN'T the reason the blower failed completely, the first thing I did was measure the voltage on both sides of F20 (the 30A blower fuse) while the engine was running, and normal voltage was present - so I knew immediately the ignition switch wasn't the problem.

For those that don't know, the blower is easily accessed in the top left of the passenger footwell, by just removing the upper "carpet" material. There are 3 plugs going into the blower - a large red and large black one which are the main power supply, and a 4 pin plug which also includes a large red and a large black wire, and two smaller wires which are control signals.

See the following:

http://homepages.igrin.co.nz/simon/imag ... lower1.jpg

After simply unplugging and refitting the 3 cables the blower started working again, so I realised I had intermitant connections...so I pulled them all out, cleaned and tensioned them and put them back, and its working fine.

However the original problem of intermitant fan speed control was probably still present, so next I tackled the ignition switch. This is what I found: :evil: :evil:

http://homepages.igrin.co.nz/simon/imag ... lower2.jpg

Yes, thats right, on a car that was only 8 when I bought it, somebody has ALREADY hotwired the blower power to run off the main ignition contacts but without a relay. :evil:

Checking with an ohm meter confirmed my worst fears - the original blower contacts on the switch are totally stuffed - randomly varying from a few ohms to a few thousand ohms every time you turn it on and off, so not even good enough to run a relay coil. :(

The problem with what they've done is that not only will the blower burn out the new contacts eventually if left there, but when it does it will disable the car as there wouldn't be any ignition power for the engine.

(Not to mention that the fan speed varies with the blinkers and brake lights, and the dash lights all dim with the fan coming on)

I ended up doing the relay mod quite differently to the ways described in the various threads, and I think my way is a lot simpler and easier to implement (no extra fuses or runs of wire back to the battery) and probably more reliable. (Not relying on the faulty switch contacts to power the relay coil)

Final result:

http://homepages.igrin.co.nz/simon/imag ... lower3.jpg

The two wires coming from the brown plug going to the switch are cut, extended, and go to the normally open contacts of the relay. (The two black wires in the picture with the taped joins)

The two cut wires from the switch are not live but I taped them up anyway. They are not used on any other switch contacts.

Pin 1 on the brown plug is the seperate supply run from the battery for the blower, and pin 2 goes across to F20 in the fuse box.

To get power for the relay coil, I tapped into the wire on pin 2 of the grey plug - this is the normal ignition switch output that goes to the engine ECU and is live in ignition on and starter mode, but not accessory.

Earth for the relay coil I took from a large bolt to the right of the fuse box. There is a convienient place to mount the relay on the side of the bonnet pull bracket which has plenty of clearance from other objects.

The consequences for this approach (compared to others) are:

a) The blower runs from the correct 12v feed from the battery - both pin 1 of the brown plug and pin 1 of the black plug go back to the battery unfused, but they are seperate runs of cable, and if you run the blower from the black plug the voltage drop that it causes will affect all other accessories such as dashboard lights, blinkers, power to the engine ECU etc. Also the blinkers, stop lights etc affect the fan speed.

When the blower runs from the brown plug this interaction doesn't happen, because the voltage drop the blower causes only affects the blower, and the voltage drop the lights cause don't affect the blower.

b) Using pin 2 of the grey plug to power the relay coil means you're not relying on dodgy contacts to run the coil - the downside of this is that the relay will also be on in starter mode as well as ignition on mode.

In actual fact this is not a problem because the fan controller will not activate the blower until the engine is started and has been running for a couple of seconds anyway - it never tries to run the fans during starting the engine, so it's a non issue.

c) No seperate fuses required - F20 of the fuse box is still the fuse that runs the blowers, so if the blower fuse blows you're not taking apart the steering column to replace the "extra" fuse fitted there with the other methods...

Hope this is of use to someone. And note that this only applies to Mk1 Xantia's. (Mk2's already have a relay for the blower)

Regards,
Simon
Hello Guys,

I too have the same problem, I've looked under the blower unit and it appears that someone has already re-done the connectors.

Is it possible to hard wire and on and off switch to the blower?

The Read window heater works and so does the hot / cold.

Much appreciated as always

coXen
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Post by Xaccers »

When you say they've redone the connectors, is that the connector at the blower, or have they done the relay mod and it's no longer working?
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Post by cox377 »

from the looks of it, they've just added new connectors going into the blower motor.

The blower hasn't worked since I bought the car. It comes on sometimes when I turn the ignition on for a short time.

I'm not bothered if I could just get it to come on full blast as and when I wanted to, the actual speed control isn't important.

Much appreciated

CoXen
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Post by Xaccers »

Fitting a manual switch if anything would be more work than fitting the relay mod.
I've had two cars with manual switches fitted, one was badly done so that it was in series with the ignition switch, basically doing bugger all, and the other, well that was on my LX that I'm breaking, it looked like someone had taken a chainsaw to the wiring in the foot well. The switch worked, basically just giving 12v directly to the fan, until the wiring burnt out, and they'd fitted the switch on the passenger side of the centre console down in the footwell, making it awkward to operate.
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