blower resistor values?

does anyone know what these values are supposed to be? my 89 civic has
just burned out the lowest speed resistor - a common failing, and i'm
contemplating repair. i have the two larger values as 0.4 and 1.2 ohms,
but does anyone know the other?

 

Using the old resistor pack from my 91 Civic LX and the drawing of the
plug at http://www.honda-tech.com/showthread.php?t=2677702&highlight=blower+resistor+ohms:

Resistance across Terminals, Ohms
1 to 2 =~ 1.6
1 to 3 =~ 0.8
3 to 4 =~ 0.2 to 0.4 (bounces around)

I trust you are aware you can buy an aftermarket resistor pack that
fits perfectly from Napa for around $30. At least, the Napa one worked
great on my 91 Civic and should be the same for your CRX.

 

new oem is $25

http://www.bkhondaparts.com/billkay/jsp/prddisplay.jsp?catcgry1=CRX&catcgry2=1991&catcgry3=2DR+DX&catcgry4=KL4AT&catcgry5=HEATER+BLOWER&ListAll=All&vinsrch=no&systemcomp=Electrical%2FExhaust%2FHeater%2FFuel&prdrefno=&quantity=0&act=&count=0&hidSwitch=Switch&hidIrno=|005

but i'm just messing about. i have some constantan wire and was
contemplating just winding a new one. thanks though elle.

 

Expedience. Plus shipping and handling gets the price up around $30.
As you know. ;-)

For the archives, Autozone.com has the resistor pack at three
different prices: $18, $24, and $36.

I figured you were doing the hobby thing. You're welcome and enjoy.

 

i figured the scale 0.4, 0.8, 1.6 made the most sense, so wound my new
resistor accordingly. it turns out, attachment is non-trivial because
the original wires are crimped into position under the solder, and
re-crimping on the original posts requires tools and precision i don't
have. additionally, resistor wire does not solder readily with
non-corrosive rosin flux, so again, the crimping is a factor in replacement.

i ended up using some brass crimps from some terminal ends and soldering
in addition. the result is not attractive to look at, took quite some
time, and longevity is to be determined. bottom line, for anyone but
the most tight-fisted, i'd spend the $25 and simply buy new.

 

I'm not "tight fisted," merely frugal...

That said, the low range resistor on two of my Gen 2 Civics are shot as
well. I would only attribute this to too low of a wattage rating. I
would imagine that fitting an off-the-shelf higher wattage unit would
fix the problem.

JT

 

yes, but it would need to be high wattage. >10W i'd guess - you can
figure it out if you know the voltage drop over the motor - but i don't.

the oem resistor sits in the air stream of the motor and is thus air
cooled - heat dissipation isn't much of a problem. your resistor would
have to be similarly configured. the reason the oem resistor fails is
general corrosion and oxidation after all those years operating in dirty
air and at high temperature.

 

How many years do you think they had on them?

My 91 Civic's had not failed. I mistakenly replaced it earlier this
year and then found the problem was actually the fan switch in the
climate control unit.

Granted there are many reports of these resistor packs failing, but it
seems they tend to last well over ten years.

 

I'm just going by what I got when I bought 'em.

The first two cars have faulty low speed resistors. Neither car has
more than 130K on 'em.

OTOH, I now drive an '82 1500 automatic and low speed is fine. It has
135K on it. I just stripped and junked an '83 1500 auto that had 127K
and the resistor was fine on it. Go figure...

I kind of enjoy tinkering with the early Civics. Great engineering and
quite simple by today's standards.

JT

 

Kind of reminds me of way back in 1990 when I worked on Diego Garcia, my
trusty pre Mac Plus started acting funny. I suspected a failing power
supply but I managed to finish out the contract before total failure.

When I got back in Austin, I took it over to a Mac Guru and he confirmed
that indeed, the power supply was on its way out but stated fixing it
would be simple. He ended up by using a few automotive diodes etc and
the damned thing would probably outlive me!

Nothing like a little overkill!

JT

 

I bought a 2003 Civic LX (81k miles at purchase) in late September and
then sold my 93 Civic DX. In the last few months I have been studying
the 2003's engineering. It will need a new timing belt late next year,
for one, and I have almost finished the homemade hex crank pulley
holding tool for it (thanks to tegger's site, Safety Steve's
contribution on this subject and my local Habitat for Humanity "Re-
Store," having all the pipe fittings for cheap) . I solved an SRS
problem on it (likewise after much research and home-made tool
development). While I miss the familiarity I had with my 90s Civics, I
am feeling like the 2001-2005 Civics do not require too much new
mastery. Or maybe it is just that the new adventure is fun. The one
drawback is that my local U-Pull-It yard does not have many of this
generation of Civic.

Certainly per your suggestions in the past about the fun of really old
Hondas, I contemplated something from the 80s. But the "cool" factor
set in, plus maybe a little mid-life crisis, plus a bit of the 2003
Civic was priced about $1000 below its KBB value, due to the SRS light
being on and one broken lock (both of which I have repaired
perfectly).

I figured Mr. Beam was going to try to improve on Honda's engineering
of the resistor pack. His effort reminds me of you and me. One always
learns a lot by these little DIY engineering projects.

Happy holidays to all.

 

of course! the blown original 1.6 ohm is 28 gauge - waaay skinny and
therefore most susceptible to corrosion. my homemade is 22 gauge.
that's double the diameter. if the connections hold up, the wire will
last >> another 20 years!

i would ask though, wtf were honda thinking when they bought this crap
from stanley in the first place? any materials guy looking at that
could have told you it's inadequate wrt corrosion, and it's not like
stanley shouldn't have had access to people with that knowledge.
especially if they're selling millions of the things. same to honda -
they should have known better. indeed, later designs do indeed use
thicker gauge wire - duh.

and while i'm talking honda electrics, i could make similar comments
about their main relay [mechanical/thermal load on a solder joint???
duh!] and their distributor's igniter unit [a remarkably
retarded/inadequate thermal pathway].

oh, and my absolute favorite, the 89 civic/crx's gauge light dimmer unit
- another stanley inadequacy classic.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/38636024@N00/4215776191/

that power transistor is rated at >100W, so in theory, it has plenty of
capacity with at least a 5x margin. but that thing has a heat sink that
can maybe dissipate 1W [ignoring the fact that it's inside a box also]
and thus overheats like crazy if you actually dim the gauge lights - and
was subsequently modified on the 90 civic/crx's.

and here's one way to fix the overheating:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/38636024@N00/4215776193/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/38636024@N00/4215776197/

 

Yeah, really. The danged thing lasted only 20 years. Twenty years!

Here you have a point. I try to look at the bigger picture: The circa
1990 Civics are still the most reliable car around and darn cheap to
repair.

 

most of the hondas of that generation were mechanically excellent [and i
would argue, their finest work ever], and in many respects, the later
generations have actually been retrograde designs. for instance, the
rear sway bar on the 88-91 civic si uses adequate lever moments to do
the job. the later ones, for reasons known only to someone without
adequate comprehension, have almost no lever moment, and thus
effectively only make the rear springs stiffer without addressing body
roll. duh.

another feature of that generation civic is the susceptibility to cross
winds - almost none! the 92-95 and 96-00 generations get blown about
like tumbleweeds. and here is the reason why:

http://www.tonyfoale.com/Articles/Aerodynamics/AERO.htm

see fig 4.

later generations of hondas have got it right again, but it took two
generations of ignorance before they rediscovered what their 88-91 team
evidently knew.

 

Honda didn't make the relay,they just specified it and a supplier made it
to meet those specs.Honda doesn't look inside them.
And generally,the relay lasts well beyond the car's warranty period.

how do you know igniters are failing due to heat?


--
Jim Yanik
jyanik
at
localnet
dot com

 

most unlikely that they didn't. and most suppliers make to customer
spec, not the other way around.

still no excuse. the reason for failure is obvious to anyone
experienced in that stuff - mitsuba should have known better. and honda
should have know better.

i don't, but i know enough, and have seen enough failures, to be pretty
confident of that diagnosis. i also know that the later designs that
have the igniter connecting directly to the side wall of the
distributor, thus providing only one thermal interface, not two like the
earlier designs, hardly ever fail.

 

Honda set the specs,and some other company MADE the relay to Honda's
specs(or already had one on the shelf),which does NOT include the interior
design of the relay.
All Honda cares about is a relay that works on 12V,has "N" switch contacts
that can handle "X" amps,and has a lifetime of at least "Y" operations,and
that fits the physical dimensions they specified.

Yes,it IS a valid "excuse". (actually a FACT,not "excuse".
electrical parts are warranteed for only so long.After that,it's a
crapshoot.Things don't last forever.even hybrid circuits have component
drift,metal migration in the IC's and semicounductors,and are subject to
surges.

Conflicting statements.
You don't know HOW the igniter failed,yet you can be confident of a
"diagnosis" of thermal failure;doesn't make sense.
Just because you've seen a lot of igniter failures doesn't mean you know
HOW they failed.Probably not even the first 3 causes of failure.
It appears to me that you KNOW -nothing- on igniter failure causes.
You just have a hunch.

Still doesn't -mean- anything.


--
Jim Yanik
jyanik
at
localnet
dot com

 

no dude - specs are more complicated than that. you look at the
differing qualities of different componentry - the ecu for example.
those things are ultra high spec componentry throughout, tested up the
wazoo, de-moisturized, conformal coating sealed, and tested again. and
in service, they almost never fail. you'd better believe that honda was
all over the spec in the minutest detail.

dude, that's bullshit. you know how long this stuff lasts if you've
done your homework correctly. there's' absolutely zero excuse for one
component to be a constant weak point, generation after generation [main
relay]. the /reason/ it happened though is because someone like you
simply /assumed/ "oh, it's just a relay" and didn't bother to test
properly. or even inspect inside the box!

that doesn't absolve mitsuba, who also should have known better, but
it's ultimately honda's responsibility for not bothering with something
any moderately competent and experienced electrical tech should have known.

er, no they're not. read that sentence again.

see above. and apply a little logic.

i know about heat paths, and i know that if one has a weak heat path and
fails, and if another that has a good heat path doesn't, then heat is by
far the most likely cause of failure. if you can't see that, then
you're either being willfully myopic, or you're simply not getting it.

if you can't follow logical analysis, i guess that could be true!

 

we're not talking about ECUs,we're talking RELAYS. big difference.

ECUs are high cost,critical components.

and Honda or any other manufacturer is not going to go to the same level of
engineering detail on a ordinary relay.

Got news for ya:
relays DO wear out.
Their contacts eventually erode,or they weld together.Some have the plating
wear off and then their life is shortened.Coils can open,or a winding short
to one next to it. you can get bad batches of parts,too.

you may be confident of your "analysis",but so what?
you have no DATA to back it up. You -know- nothing.

Bad logic. Particularly whan you DONT KNOW WHAT THE FAILURES WERE!
Are the components INSIDE the new igniters the same as the original
igniters? do you even know?

you're the one "not getting it".

You just don't know what you're talking about.

But there's no telling you anything.

--
Jim Yanik
jyanik
at
localnet
dot com

 

why not? the ecu is made up of weeny little low cost components. lots
of them. lots of places to go wrong if, my your logic, no individual
one is worth worrying about.

and guess what - it's not the contacts failing in these relays!!! it's
the solder joints because the solder is taking thermal/mechanical
load!!! that's "basic electronics 'how not to' manufacture 101" that
anyone using larger hotter electromechanicals learns early on.

er, the data is in what i posted there dude. try one more time.

here's a logic test for you:

if i'm bashing a nail with a hammer, and i miss the nail, and at around
that same time, my thumb starts to hurt, do you think the nail missing
and the hurting thumb are connected? i mean, i couldn't actually /see/
the hammer hit my thumb because the hammer was literally in the way.

putting it another way, what would be the likelihood of my hurting thumb
/not/ being hammer strike? because by your logic, my thumb has just
been hit by some other random object i also didn't see.

no, i'm the one that's having the temerity to stick to known facts.

sure there is. lots of people tell me lots of things. but admittedly,
people that can't pass a basic logic test are going to have a real hard
time trying.