Blast of cold air

[SimonR]

Coupled with my rather inadequate heater this little problem is causing me grief now the cold weather is upon us.

It seems that my XJ-S has suplementary ventilation ducts at the sides, under the dash. I'm guessing that there's a gromit or some blanking panel missing or something but can't find anything obvious. Is there a hole for the bonnet release mechanism on the Right hand side? It's definately a blast of cold air from the extreme right of the dash, sort of underneath it. According to my passengers the same thing happens on the other side but less so.

I'm going to look one lunchtime as I couldn't see anything in the dark with a torch at the weekend. Now it's getting cold I'm feeling the chill!

Cheers

[Mark_B]

Hey it's not those Blue pipe things coming off the blower units is it? You get quite a blast of cold air when that happens.

[SimonR]

Ah, yeah, that could be part of the problem, I know the bits you mean. In fact I did make some progress with this by replacing the thermostat. Now the engine gets up to temperature properly and the heater can counteract the effect of the cold air coming into the car. However, at the weekend, coming back from Eastbourne I lost all air from any of the vents so nearly died of hypothermia as it got bloody cold in the cabin! Even though the blowers seem to be working ok no warm air is being circulated.

Therefore I have two problems:
1) cold air is entering the cabin
2)my engine is now getting up to temperature so the heater is able to warm the air but my blowers are uable to deliver it!

The problems are compounded by the fact that there's currently an immobile XJRS parked outside my garage, preventing me from opening the door to get my car out... That's a whole different story though.

So that's my Saturday sorted out then, if it's not snowing.

[almcl]

Simon

One thing that occurrs to ask, is are the recirculation flaps closing all the way? If they don't, then fresh air that is supposed to go through the fan motor from the top and into the air con unit ends up rushing out into the footwell and there's much less output from the heater.

[Mark_B]

I might just be wrong, but isn't that recircy-vent thing under the blower unit actually the suction side of the blower? I remeber last time I had one of these apart the top an bottom flaps both fed into the same chamber to the fan centre, swept centrifugally and off at a tangent pushing into the blue pipes. What can come off and sometimes a pig to get back on.