Strange things happening - Gremlins?

[DrRog]

Hi folks

My '97 2.1 TD LX estate has a few gremlins under the dash.

I have managed to deal with the intermittent fan by strapping the wiring up.

Whilst my head was under the glovebox I noticed a strange buzz, almost a tick-tock, as if something was changing state with a short gap between each change. It seemed to be independent of either the fan or any other electrical item and came form one of the relay boxes under the left side of the dash.

The other day we where driving along when a continuous buzz came from under the left side of the dash. It sounded like a relay was going barmy, the frequency was familiar. After about five minutes it stopped.

Has anyone ever had such a problem?

I also have an intermittent speedo and independantly an intermittent tacho. Various threads on various forums suggest this is a sender on the gearbox or an earth fault.

Again has anyone had such a problem and can you offer any advice, such as where to find the offending items??

Thanks
Rog

[jonsowman]

Right, here goes my guesses:

1) The tick tock, this sounds like the recirculation flap motor. They are known for stripped teeth on a gear and the motor will just continually spin and make a clicking sound. Turning the recirc on/off won't stop it clicking, the only way to test is to unplug the unit. Remove the glovebox (this takes 10 minutes) and look up into the cavity behind. The unit is the one with orange writing on it in the picture below. Follow its leads until you reach a connector and just unplug it. There's no huge need to replace the unit if you can live without recirc, but make sure that the flap is in the open (not recirc) position. You can manually move it by removing the pollen filter and reaching down into the air duct and pushing the flap to the open position.



The buzzing you heard could also be this unit.

2) Speedo is likely to either be the vehicle speed sensor located behind the passenger glove box, or dry joints on the instrument panel. Both of these are reasonably painless fixes. I recommend disassembling the instrument panel to check first, otherwise you might be needlessly paying for a new sensor. There are pictures and instructions in a thread on here somewhere about dismantling the panel and checking for and fixing dry joints.

Hope this helps you a bit.

[DrRog]

Thanks loads for an excellent reply.

Its made me feel much happier, because re-circ is not an important function in summer and there is light at the end of an electronic speedo problem.

[DrRog]

Clocks fixed thanks to this forum.

The motor is behaving itself for now, I don't it burned out as it still makes the odd click.

Next job is door seals and trim, a good clean in the back and the bonnet recall.

The dreaded timing and belts will need doing I suppose...