air con pump and heater

Now that my freelander (2003 53 td4) is back on the road with its new rad and alternator I have noticed somthing strange

when the fan for the cabin heater is on any setting other than "off" the clutch on the Air Con pump engages

Is this right? do any of you guys have this same issue?


if the teperature on the cabin heater is at cold then the air flowing through the vents is still only air temp and not chilled untill I press the AC button which is the bit that I find strange as the cooling pipes are cold.

so does anyone know if this is right and do I ned to "mod" my cooling system as to have the pump constantly engaged is going to realy hit my MPG


I have seen posts on the subject of the liquid droping from the AC de-humidifier and wonder if it is just an air drying system that is on but i want to turn it off.

anyway any help apreciated

ed

the what?? yer mean the A/C evaporator shirley. that just water condensing on the pipes , it drops orf and should run out the two drain pipes.

yeh probably that but there is always water coming out of the rubber drain at the back of the engin bay even when the AC has been off for days.

what I am trying to find out is if the pump is compresser is always engaged when the heater fan is on, in other peoples TD4s of if it is just mine

I cant belive that there would be a design to have a compresser always running and draining power from the engine even when the A/C is off

ed

compressor should only work with A/C switch on and blower switch on.
You sure A/C switch aint stuck in.

sounds like a stuck relay, find the aircon one and remove to see if it makes a difference

also I remember reading somewhere that the aircon comes on when airflow set onto windscreen (defrost)setting

aussielander said:

sounds like a stuck relay, find the aircon one and remove to see if it makes a difference

Click to expand...

course it will make a difference, yer just cut off the power to the pump clutch. what yer need to do is change it to test for a sticky relay

thats what I ment

OK I GOT IS SORTED.

Following on from this advice

aussielander said:

also I remember reading somewhere that the aircon comes on when airflow set onto windscreen (defrost)setting

Click to expand...

I have had a play and found that if I set the direction of the blowers to the windscreen then it engages the compresser to dry out the air and aid demisting. if it points to the feet or the vents in the dash it dis-engages the pump.

investigation further, There is a small switch that engages just after the location on the direction switch that points to the feet. It is about 1 o clock between to the feet and between the feet and the wind screen.

I think that I may try to find a quick demist switch and put it inline so that I can disable the compresser turn on, as I drive around most of the time with the heat on full in between my feet and the windscreen and all the windows open. It seems silly to waste fuel with the compresser perminantly engaged.