1998 Defender 130 300 TDi air conditioning wiring - help needed

[86mud]

Hi All,

Recently my air con has been cutting in and out and my band aid fix was to fiddle the six wires that feed in/out of the 4 way fuse holder (one of the fuses is not used). The original white plastic plugs where breaking down and there was a seriously loose connection in there somewhere. I also noticed that the middle fuse was very hot...to the point it was melting the fuse (but not blowing it).

So I whipped out the crimping tool and crimped on new ends, doing one at a time to ensure I didn't get them in the wrong order.

When I was cutting off the last original white plug and then stripping back the wire sheath, the wire strippers touched the metal of the fuse block and there was an arc.

I continued to finish the last crimp and went to turn on the air con, but it was dead....nothing at all.

I checked all the fuses on the 4 way fuse holder and the main fuse block and all are good.

The connection that I was touching when it arced out was the green/red wire at the bottom right of the 4 way fuse holder in the first picture below. This wire leads up to the large 4 way white plug. Actually both green/red wires go into the same port on the large white plug. On the other side of the large white plug is a large brown wire.

Does anyone know where this goes? It looks like it goes upwards behind the dash. This must have been live. But it is not now.

Using a test light I get power through the red/white wire into the way 4 fuse holder. Then this flows through to two relays.

Any help on why my air con is not now working would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks heaps

[strangy]

Linky

http://www.aulro.com/afvb/90-110-130-defender-county/119231-air-con-wiring-advice-needed-6.html

[86mud]

Thanks Strangy

My truck does not have any air con electrics in the battery box. There is the 3 way fuse block and 2 relays sitting along side the main fuse box.

Does anyone know what the Thermo Amp looks like?

[jboot51]

It is about 60x90x20mm.
Has a plug with about 10 wires. This plug gets hot contacts which causes the ac to stop working.
I removed the plug and soldered the wires directly to the pcb.

The thermo amp is usually located in the battery box, along with the 2 relays and fuses.
As your relays aren't in the usual location, the amp could be anywhere.
They may have stuck it in the air duct or behind the instrument panel.

The defenders that I have played with seem to have the feed wire for the thermo amp coming from the cigarette lighter so you may want to check that fuse first.
The wire is usually white.

[86mud]

Thanks Tony

Cigarette fuse 100% operational.

I need more time to follow the heavy brown wire from the large white connector to see where it goes.

Thanks