Cooling Fan Not Working - P0481 Error

[bsafly]

Hello Richard,
The air conditioning condenser is toast and will need replacing, regarding the cooling fan it does look bad, but without testing it as described in previous posts you cannot say without doubt that it is unserviceable.
Your choices are to test, strip and inspect or as you said replace, testing is really the best way forward.
Hope that helps, Paul.

[suzublu]

Just fitted a new condenser to mine, relatively easy, new from DMGRS and new "O" rings. If you've got that much stripped off, may as well replace it
This was mine

[vitesse]

As above, but just seen this on eBay - https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/294473483...YAAOSw8TNhbYFr

Motor does look unused and is a similar 2 wire motor, the presence of a gold resistor indicates a later upgrade as all new ones I've seen have silver resistors.
Must be worth the £10 bid, just the gold resistor costs more than that, and your silver resistor might have blown. I'd be interested myself, but won't post to Sweden.

If you don't like taking a chance, and don't want to open your fan motor, there are new, 2 speed fan motors on eBay: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/142196055...0AAOSwfVpYpx0I

Good luck

[Arctic]

Originally Posted by Aldeburgh

Right, latest news.

I've got down to behind the fan now and it looks a right mess:


As you can see it's very rusty and it appears to have been rubbing against the A/C condenser/radiator as there are loads of "shavings" from that around. There was no gas in the a/c system when I took the pipes off.

I personally would say there is a chance if you changed the silver resistor on that fan it could well kick into life, fit the grub screw to hold the fan blade on, even if you purchase the one in the link above that resistor will need changing out further down the road for a gold one anyway.

So purchase a gold resistor fit it to the original fan and go from there, condenser needs to be changed out, best to do the work now safe taking all the front of again at a later date.

[SD1too]

Originally Posted by Aldeburgh

As you can see it's very rusty and it appears to have been rubbing against the A/C condenser ... as there are loads of "shavings" from that around.

Hi Richard,

The shavings are most likely to be natural deterioration of the condenser fins. Your motor and/or shroud mounting would have to be seriously deficient to allow contact and you would have noticed that whilst dismantling.

As bsafly says, it's unwise to judge the motor's condition simply by the external appearance of the casing which leads me onto ...

Originally Posted by Aldeburgh

I did the first of the suggested voltage tests. Thick purple wire to -ve terminal was roughly 10 volts.

I forgot to ask you to give the battery voltage (ignition off) as a comparison, sorry. If the battery voltage is 12v then you're losing 2v through the motor and resistor which is a lot. However it shows that the resistor is not open circuit. You can check further in two ways:

1. With the car battery disconnected, select the lowest resistance range on your meter (eg 20Ω). Place one probe on the large relay's thick black wire and the other probe on the thick purple wire as before. It doesn't matter which way around your probes are connected. There's some uncertainty about the value but you should see a reading of between 0.3 and 0.5Ω.
2. The other method needs the battery to remain connected. Using the 20v DC range, place the red meter probe on the thick black wire and the black meter probe to battery negative. Compare this with battery voltage. They should be approximately the same.

These result of these tests will help you decide the best course of action.

Simon

[Aldeburgh]

Originally Posted by SD1too

I forgot to ask you to give the battery voltage (ignition off) as a comparison, sorry. If the battery voltage is 12v then you're losing 2v through the motor and resistor which is a lot. However it shows that the resistor is not open circuit. You can check further in two ways:

1. With the car battery disconnected, select the lowest resistance range on your meter (eg 20Ω). Place one probe on the large relay's thick black wire and the other probe on the thick purple wire as before. It doesn't matter which way around your probes are connected. There's some uncertainty about the value but you should see a reading of between 0.3 and 0.5Ω.
2. The other method needs the battery to remain connected. Using the 20v DC range, place the red meter probe on the thick black wire and the black meter probe to battery negative. Compare this with battery voltage. They should be approximately the same.

These result of these tests will help you decide the best course of action.

Simon

Thanks, Simon (and everybody for all the helpful posts).

Voltage across the battery terminals is 12.47. I couldn't get a reading of resistance using method 1 above (just showed open circuit) but method 2 gave a reading of 12.47V, same as the battery itself. I tried the initial test again and got 10.1V.

Thanks again,

Richard

[SD1too]

Originally Posted by Aldeburgh

I couldn't get a reading of resistance using method 1 above (just showed open circuit) ...

Are you sure that you mean open circuit, i.e. infinite resistance so no reading on the meter at all? If so, I suspect that your probes weren't making good contact or you had selected a high range on the meter. This is because if the resistor was open circuit you wouldn't get any voltage on the purple wire but you're getting 10.1 volts!

If you're able temporarily to secure the fan & shroud assembly and you have a length of wire, we could trigger the slow speed by making a connection in the control box. I can talk you through it on the phone if you'd like to (send me a PM).

Regards,

Simon

[Aldeburgh]

Hi Simon,

Sorry - ran out of time yesterday. Yes, I was getting open circuit but could have been poor contacts - will try again. I'll dig out some wire for next time