Can anyone tell me if the cold air blower (Masterace but, presumably the same on a Townace)is controlled, in any way, by a sensor which is sensitive to outside temperatures ? It seems, on my vehicle, the outside temperature has to be quite high, before the blower will feed cold air into the vehicle. If the outside temperature is in any way "parky", even though the "cold" postion (on the slide switch) is selected, I never seem to be able to get cold air, with or without the A/C on. Hot air is blown until, it seems, the outside temperature rises. It does seem a bit far fetched but, as our type of vehicle was popular in Russia, I often wonder if I have a "Siberian" spec on my vehicle's heating/cooling system.

- (#2781) John Davis, 29 Apr 02

John,
I am assuming that yours is the standard A/C & heating system, as opposed to the 'climate control' system, Climate control has numbers for degrees C as opposed to the sliding scale & an 'AUTO' position on the fan. Basically if you have 'Climate Control' then it will keep it warm inside when cold out & colder in when warm out, obviously depending on the temperatures you select, this is achieved by a couple of sensors in the vehicle feeding back to an ECU and this controls the heater/AC flaps. If it is a normal A/C & heater system, then it is entirely manual, the flaps for heated/cold air are controlled by you, the only automatic bit is the fact that there is an anti-freezing system built into the air conditioning system, this means that when the A/C system gets down to around 5 degrees C, it cuts the compressor out until it warms up a bit, then cuts the compressor back in, this is called cycling & is quite normal, it prevents the A/C freezing, if it were allowed to freeze, then all the water that condenses on the evaportor in the dash panel would freeze, as you know water expands when it freezes & this expansion would crack the evaporator & allow the refrigerant to escape rendering the A/C useless. HTH Regards Rob.

- (#2782) Rob Drinkwater, 29 Apr 02

Rob,
Many thanks for your splendid and detailed explanation. As I started my motoring in the days when heating was a blanket over your knees and "air conditioning" was an open window, I can be excused for my lack of knowledge here. I should have been more detailed in my posting, Yes, my Masterace has "climate control" and your note enables me to understand the system & it's operation much more.
As I've said before, who needs a workshop manual when we have this magnificent BOK facility.
- (#2789) John Davis, 30 Apr 02