Blower Fan Resistor Harness Melted!!

[Hughzie]

4 months ago I lost all fan speed settings bar number 4 so came on here and you guys had already fixed this issue multiple times over. New fan resistor ordered and fitted (Made even more stupidly difficult without having a 5.5mm socket!) and it was back to normal.

4 months later I stated to get an intermittent speed 3. 1,2&4 worked just fine so just left it for a while but this became rather annoying since number 3 is the usual setting. Decided to take a look at it to see if I could work out what was wrong but figured the first test would be to spend another £13 on a resistor and just check it wasn't a bad part, well that was the plan!

Turns out the plug and wiring that connect to the resistor have melted! Only seems to be the one wire effected but its destroyed the plug and melted the insulation off the fist part of the wire on the harness.
Does anyone have any idea what would have caused this and what else I should be checking? I've looked at the connections on the fan and back of the control switch and they both seem fine.

Tried phoning the local Citroen parts place to see of the blower harness was a separate item but its all part of the cars wring loom and they didn't stock the plug separately. I passed when he said the loom is in stock for £1500!!

Found what I think is the plug on Amazon but its listed as a Fiat part, hopefully its the right one so I can splice it in but I'm worried I might be missing what initially caused this issue in the first place.

Anyone got any ideas on this?


         

[Stoots1975]

4 months ago I lost all fan speed settings bar number 4 so came on here and you guys had already fixed this issue multiple times over. New fan resistor ordered and fitted (Made even more stupidly difficult without having a 5.5mm socket!) and it was back to normal.

4 months later I stated to get an intermittent speed 3. 1,2&4 worked just fine so just left it for a while but this became rather annoying since number 3 is the usual setting. Decided to take a look at it to see if I could work out what was wrong but figured the first test would be to spend another £13 on a resistor and just check it wasn't a bad part, well that was the plan!

Turns out the plug and wiring that connect to the resistor have melted! Only seems to be the one wire effected but its destroyed the plug and melted the insulation off the fist part of the wire on the harness.
Does anyone have any idea what would have caused this and what else I should be checking? I've looked at the connections on the fan and back of the control switch and they both seem fine.

Tried phoning the local Citroen parts place to see of the blower harness was a separate item but its all part of the cars wring loom and they didn't stock the plug separately. I passed when he said the loom is in stock for £1500!!

Found what I think is the plug on Amazon but its listed as a Fiat part, hopefully its the right one so I can splice it in but I'm worried I might be missing what initially caused this issue in the first place.

Anyone got any ideas on this?


 

Melted wires are usually caused by a bad connection, the power has to work harder to get through that connection causing it to heat up, and that heat unfortunately melts the wires. 

Connectors with a sloppy fit can usually be squeezed a little (may need to be unpinned) to tighten the connection and stop any heat from building up.

Basically a sloppy fit infuses resistance and heat, no slop -no heat!

[Hughzie]

4 months ago I lost all fan speed settings bar number 4 so came on here and you guys had already fixed this issue multiple times over. New fan resistor ordered and fitted (Made even more stupidly difficult without having a 5.5mm socket!) and it was back to normal.

4 months later I stated to get an intermittent speed 3. 1,2&4 worked just fine so just left it for a while but this became rather annoying since number 3 is the usual setting. Decided to take a look at it to see if I could work out what was wrong but figured the first test would be to spend another £13 on a resistor and just check it wasn't a bad part, well that was the plan!

Turns out the plug and wiring that connect to the resistor have melted! Only seems to be the one wire effected but its destroyed the plug and melted the insulation off the fist part of the wire on the harness.
Does anyone have any idea what would have caused this and what else I should be checking? I've looked at the connections on the fan and back of the control switch and they both seem fine.

Tried phoning the local Citroen parts place to see of the blower harness was a separate item but its all part of the cars wring loom and they didn't stock the plug separately. I passed when he said the loom is in stock for £1500!!

Found what I think is the plug on Amazon but its listed as a Fiat part, hopefully its the right one so I can splice it in but I'm worried I might be missing what initially caused this issue in the first place.

Anyone got any ideas on this?


 

Melted wires are usually caused by a bad connection, the power has to work harder to get through that connection causing it to heat up, and that heat unfortunately melts the wires. 

Connectors with a sloppy fit can usually be squeezed a little (may need to be unpinned) to tighten the connection and stop any heat from building up.

Basically a sloppy fit infuses resistance and heat, no slop -no heat!

That would make sense as the plug took some wiggling to get it off the old one.
My biggest issue now seems to be finding a replacement plug. Non of the ones online seem to be listed as Berlingo and the one I've ordered is for a Fiat so not overly confident it will fit.

Going to have to ring around the couple of local scrap years and see if they have any in. I'm assuming they are the same in the car and panel vans.

[Sol]

Spot about the bad connection. Always makes heat and often melts stuff.

Scrappy for sure. Armed with cutters you can take a plug pretty quickly but make sure the point where you splice also has tight connections. Loose terminations can cause fires.

[Hughzie]

The generic one I ordered off Amazon arrived today. Looks exactly the same except its come with 5 pre wired pins with random colours and the car only has 4 wires to connect to.
Looking at what I've got left and searching multiple YT videos of people replacing these I've come to the conclusion its wired (Starting Left with the bolt on the right):
1.Blue
2.White
3.Yellow/Orange
4.EMPTY
5.Black

Anyone able to confirm this? I guess I've got a 50/50 shot as I know 1,2&5 and its really just finding the location of the Y/O and the empty one.

[Stoots1975]

The generic one I ordered off Amazon arrived today. Looks exactly the same except its come with 5 pre wired pins with random colours and the car only has 4 wires to connect to.
Looking at what I've got left and searching multiple YT videos of people replacing these I've come to the conclusion its wired (Starting Left with the bolt on the right):
1.Blue
2.White
3.Yellow/Orange
4.EMPTY
5.Black

Anyone able to confirm this? I guess I've got a 50/50 shot as I know 1,2&5 and its really just finding the location of the Y/O and the empty one.

Can't confirm the wiring colours, but if you can de-pin the connector you might find it may only needs the one wire redone. But I would certainly use the new plug moulding and tighten the connectors a little with pliers before re-pinning.

[Sol]

Look, you know the wires and colours of the harness and original plug. You just make sure the plug pins are the same number, and pick the ones which match by position, join those to the original harness wires regardless of new wire colour.

It's not hard to figure out, the same plug pin position has to be maintained for all pins. The system doesn't care about the colours!

[Hughzie]

The generic one I ordered off Amazon arrived today. Looks exactly the same except its come with 5 pre wired pins with random colours and the car only has 4 wires to connect to.
Looking at what I've got left and searching multiple YT videos of people replacing these I've come to the conclusion its wired (Starting Left with the bolt on the right):
1.Blue
2.White
3.Yellow/Orange
4.EMPTY
5.Black

Anyone able to confirm this? I guess I've got a 50/50 shot as I know 1,2&5 and its really just finding the location of the Y/O and the empty one.

Can't confirm the wiring colours, but if you can de-pin the connector you might find it may only needs the one wire redone. But I would certainly use the new plug moulding and tighten the connectors a little with pliers before re-pinning.

Never thought of that, I'll have a go at doing that first.

Best image I've found on YT was this one.

   

[Sol]

It's pin for pin! Ffs you ignore my message, I'm an electronics engineer of 40 years experience. Join pin 1 to wire 1, pin 2 to wire 2 ffs its not hard!

Jesus Christ, a child could join a plug to that circuit.

I hope you never need to put a plug on a toaster.

Btw if you need to complain to the complaints dept, I'm it.

[Hughzie]

It's pin for pin! Ffs you ignore my message, I'm an electronics engineer of 40 years experience. Join pin 1 to wire 1, pin 2 to wire 2 ffs its not hard!

Jesus Christ, a child could join a plug to that circuit.

I hope you never need to put a plug on a toaster.

Btw if you need to complain to the complaints dept, I'm it.

You missing the issue here, there was 5 pins, 4 wires, the one that melted is next to the empty one so I didn't know which was which as the metal socket was loose in the hole that melted between the 2 of them. The resistor also seems set up for all 5 to be used in different combinations.
Thankfully found one from a scrap yard which confirms pin 4 is not used.

As for the toaster, its usually cheaper to buy a new one given the cost of plugs these days.