Jmiller
Active Member
Alright, so I havve a friend who is the owner of an e36 bmw, which have an inherent flaw in their climate control unit. There's a bad capacitor that needs replacing, and upon figuring out what to do, my friend and I made a radioshack run.
$22.60 bought us a soldering iron, solder, a desoldering vac, and a 47 uF electrolytic capacitor. Now came the fun part.
First, we removed the BMW Onboard Computer, as it was the only way to get access to the climate control unit which sat on top of it. This proved to be a little more tricky than we intially hoped for, but once we got the right technique (press upwards hard to release the unit) it slid right out. The nice thing about this is that you can leave it connected. The climate control unit sits on top of it, and I got that to slide out fairly easily. There's two cables connected to the back of it, which unhooked with a little bit of tugging.
The removed Climate Control Unit:
After we got that out, it was time to open it up. Four screws held the plate together, which came out with a small flathead screwdriver. We also had to remove the fan from the unit also. It serves to draw air in to test the internal temperature of the car. That came off pretty easily. The circuit board however was a little more challenging. We both used tiny screwdrivers to force it out. Not idea, but it got the job done.
On that board, there's a big blue connector, and right in front of it, a blue capacitor. Next, we flipped the board over and desoldered the capacitor. There's a small resistor you have to make sure you don't ruin with the soldering iron. This was a little tricky, as I have zero soldering experience. Once we got that out, we cleaned the holes so the new capacitor would slide in easily. We put the new one in, paying attention to the polarity. The positive and was on the right. After a Soldering 101 lesson from the internet, we managed to solder in the new capacitor correctly without ruining any of the surrounding electrical components.
The new capacitor soldered onto the circuit board:
Now it was down to reassembly. Essentially just working in reverse, I put the unit back together while my friend was off taking a phone call. It was much easier to slide the unit back into the car than it was to remove it. We reconnected the two wires to the control unit and slid it back in. Then we also had to put the onboard computer back in. Again, very easy. We turned on the car, and luckily everything worked.
Success! -- Working Climate Control Unit!
Not bad for $22 and a couple of burned fingers.
If anyone wants to do this to there BMW the site is
http://www.macadamizer.com/bmwfix.html
$22.60 bought us a soldering iron, solder, a desoldering vac, and a 47 uF electrolytic capacitor. Now came the fun part.
First, we removed the BMW Onboard Computer, as it was the only way to get access to the climate control unit which sat on top of it. This proved to be a little more tricky than we intially hoped for, but once we got the right technique (press upwards hard to release the unit) it slid right out. The nice thing about this is that you can leave it connected. The climate control unit sits on top of it, and I got that to slide out fairly easily. There's two cables connected to the back of it, which unhooked with a little bit of tugging.
The removed Climate Control Unit:
After we got that out, it was time to open it up. Four screws held the plate together, which came out with a small flathead screwdriver. We also had to remove the fan from the unit also. It serves to draw air in to test the internal temperature of the car. That came off pretty easily. The circuit board however was a little more challenging. We both used tiny screwdrivers to force it out. Not idea, but it got the job done.
On that board, there's a big blue connector, and right in front of it, a blue capacitor. Next, we flipped the board over and desoldered the capacitor. There's a small resistor you have to make sure you don't ruin with the soldering iron. This was a little tricky, as I have zero soldering experience. Once we got that out, we cleaned the holes so the new capacitor would slide in easily. We put the new one in, paying attention to the polarity. The positive and was on the right. After a Soldering 101 lesson from the internet, we managed to solder in the new capacitor correctly without ruining any of the surrounding electrical components.
The new capacitor soldered onto the circuit board:
Now it was down to reassembly. Essentially just working in reverse, I put the unit back together while my friend was off taking a phone call. It was much easier to slide the unit back into the car than it was to remove it. We reconnected the two wires to the control unit and slid it back in. Then we also had to put the onboard computer back in. Again, very easy. We turned on the car, and luckily everything worked.
Success! -- Working Climate Control Unit!
Not bad for $22 and a couple of burned fingers.
If anyone wants to do this to there BMW the site is
http://www.macadamizer.com/bmwfix.html
:lol:
LOL Was a pain cause it used to heat the car in the summer sometimes! Ouch!