Automatic temperature control going in!

[chilort]

I found most of an automatic temperature control setup in a '86 Lebaron in the JY. I've been looking forward to installing it in my '86 Daytona Turbo Z CS. Some parts were in poor condition and over the past few months I collected the rest. I spent last evening cleaning things up, sorting out the wiring, and cleaning things up some more.

This afternoon I spent about two hours removing enough of the dash that I could finally start installing the stuff. Oh, wait ... what's that? Thunder storms? This is the wettest drought I've ever seen. So I had to pack it all up. By the time the storm moves out, it'll be too dark to work. I could continue to work, but what would take 2 hours in the day light will take 4 because of having to move the freaking light around.

And my fiancee got home early from work and is just babbling on about napkin designs, or invitation designs, or some sort of designs for something. I just wanna go work on my car. I can't wait to be out of school again and have enough change for a garage again.

[TurboZchik]

Interesting, what made you decide put that in your car?

[MiniMopar]

I have one in my Turbo Z from an '87 LeBaron. The first mistake I made was forgetting to grab the respirator. I had to make my own and I'm not sure if the thermistor I chose it quite right.

Overall, I'm not terribly impressed. The early models don't have a heater core temp sensor, so they use a timer that seems to be scaled based on the incoming air temp to hold the fan off in the winter until you have heat. Sometimes it's right and sometimes not.

They also don't have an "auto" mode where it will control the fan speed based an the amount of temperature difference. Aside from the cold startup timer, you have to control the fan manually.

In the winter, I just leave it set on 85 (which tells it to leave the heat on full all the time). If I didn't, it would warm the car up and then mix too much cold air in and freeze you do death.

YMMV.

[chilort]

I am doing it mostly for fun. I found the parts. I thought I might sell them on eBay. Put them up with a stupid high price. It didn't sell, so its going in my car. I also like how "fancy" the car is and it is annoying that they didn't come with the "nicer" temp control. People are blown away by the navigator computer. I think the auto temp control will get them even more.

I'm not too worried about the heat issue either. I spent enough time in northern Indiana to know I never want to go back to cold winters ever again. My biggest issues is how much heat comes though when I have the fan on, set on full cold, but without the AC. The air never seems to cool down unless I kick on the AC for a second. But it doesn't take any time at all for it to heat back up again. I've checked and rechecked and tightened and adjusted the mix door cable and it never seems to help.

Oh, and I'm missing the low setting on my fan. It could be the resistor or the switch. With the new setup, I don't have to find out.

Hopefully this will kill several birds with one stone and I'll have fancy digital heat / AC controls.

[raccoon]

I had it installed in my shadow for a while, it wasnt the great and my blend motor never worked so i put in the non AC ultra basic system with 2 sliders. and its 100% working now.

change the heater core while your in there.

http://img60.imageshack.us/img60/1336/dscf6380xp6.jpg



i am still going to install the talking car option from a newyorker one day.

[chilort]

I did the heater core about this time last year with most of the AC system. I think I can get to every thing I need to get to too without having to take out the box. I've got my fingers crossed. The only thing I'm worried about is the blend motor.

[chilort]

All right, I got it all in.

I have two problems though. One is that the defrost button does not appear to work. That's okay. I've got a couple other modules and I can pull a button from one of them.

The other problem is that the mix air door motor doesn't seem to know when to give up. Once it goes all the way one way, it just keeps trying to go and then clicks. I can usually back the temp out one way other the other to get it to stop going. Is the motor broke?

I was also thinking I might need to do the self-diagnostics to set the sweep of the mix air door motor. But with the defrost button not working, I can't run the self-diagnostics.

Suggestions?

[MiniMopar]

The motor has a TPS-like sensor inside. Maybe it is bad.

[chilort]

Yeah, now that I have the defrost button fixed (rigged in an extra button from my navigator leftovers -- yeah, I know it is a SPST, but it works) I get error code number 4. Looks like I'm off to the JY to get the actuator out of the New Yorker that provided the control module.

Thanks!

[chilort]

Well, I pulled another mix air door actuator from the pull-a-part and installed it this afternoon. It doesn't want to turn at all.

I took both apart. The rheostat works just fine. I guess I must have a problem either in the wiring itself or in the control module (brain box, head unit, whatever). At least I can pin out the wiring. Finding another '86 / '87 control module will be a PITA.

[zin]

Well after reading this I'm pretty sure that I won't be installing on in my car. I too thought it would be cool, but it's sounds like I might be adding complications to a car that really doesn't need it. Still, I'll be following this thread to see how it all goes and who knows, I might just change my mind.

Best of luck with this, hope it goes well (so I can justify doing it myself!)

Mike

[chilort]

I can say that if I had to do it again, I think I'd try to see if I could graft in the newer (88 to 9?) system rather than the '86/87. Mostly because there are more '88+ systems out there than '86/87.

It also took a bit to figure out some of the controls. Like finding out that once you get the temp down to 65 on the control panel, you have to hold it down for 4 seconds to make it stay in recirc.

I also started with some rough parts. Some module in the place for the center speaker (I have no idea what) in the original LeBaron I pulled everything from had blown up and melted all of the conformal coat/funk onto everything below it. This included the control module, wiring harness, mix air door actuator, etc. That partly explains why such a nice LeBaron was in the pull-a-part.

[chilort]

Oh, and you can remove/replace the mix air door actuator while the air box is in the car. I'm 6'2" and around 245lbs (aka beer fat). All you have to do is sit upside down in the seat and good-to-go. Oh, and I'm over 30, so I'll know about this tomorrow, but it can be done.

And seriously, it isn't a Dodge without an electrical problem and an oil leak.

[zin]

Hmm, well maybe I can give it a go with the Spirit, it's pretty loaded already and it seems the newer stuff (91+) has had some of the bugs worked out... Time will tell.

[chilort]

Well, I pulled another mix air door actuator from the pull-a-part and installed it this afternoon. It doesn't want to turn at all.

I took both apart. The rheostat works just fine. I guess I must have a problem either in the wiring itself or in the control module (brain box, head unit, whatever). At least I can pin out the wiring. Finding another '86 / '87 control module will be a PITA.

I'm not sure what was wrong exactly with the mix air door controller. I must have missed something when I ohmed it out. I put in another and it all works fine now.

Combined with my newly working A/C, I finally get to cruise cool in the cool.

[zin]

Glad to hear you got it going! Let us know how well it works once you get some seat time in the now climate controlled ride!

Mike