Duncan's HGE70W car, RHD Titan

[Duncan]

Anyway, here is the suspect part (my marker on it). It did have numbers on the shell but unhelpfully they were not nissan part#s to make it difficult.

I pulled it apart to make sure nothing simple had failed, there are a bunch of gears, a wiper for the position sensor and a small electric motor.  The motor didn't move even with 12v applied directly to it's terminals so replacement is the way

What was interesting is that the motor's terminals were connected to pins 5 and 6 in the connector (+/- one way to turn clockwise, swapped to turn counter clockwise. However, the Titan wiring connector didn't have anything in pin 5 for the connector.

The manuals have got a lot better since R32 rolled out, but I was still not able to find a single diagram showing the pin out for the M147 connector in the Titan, this was as close as I got which shows pins 1 and 6 in the Titan control the motor.

D40 (spanish) navara shows the following pin out for the air mix door connector, pins 5 and 6 control the motor.

No wonder it had not been working correctly from the start, the Titan and Navara use the same connector so it plugs in fine, but different wiring. Thanks Nissan.

(incidentally while doing this job I also worked out the fresh/recirc controller also has compatible plugs but opposite wiring, meaning for 5 years we had the unit on recirc when we thought it was fresh, and also explaining why choosing windscreen demist on the controls had always released a stream of fog onto the windshield......must fix that one day too).

[Duncan]

So.....happily a (the) local wrecker had a spanish D40 with a heater box (they wouldn't separate the actuator) and they agreed to pull it out for me to pick up in 3 days.

2 weeks later, still no heater box, and when I finally spoke to someone it "was a much bigger job than they expected to pull the heater box out and they would need an extra $50". Yep, apparently a wrecker that had been in business for 50 years didn't know pulling a heater box could be a big job. But since it was still a 8 week wait for brand new (and warmer weather is on the way) and the car is in pieces, and the next nearest heater box I could find was 4 hours each way, I gave them the extra case of beer.

Got the bit, lost some more skin putting it back in. Dragged the connector from deep in the dash and up through near the radio so I could get at the pins, repinned it to navara pin out and plugged in back in.

Put a million pieces of factory and aftermarket conversion dash back in, and lo and behold....

....Kel's car now has full cold, full hot, AND options in between.

Win, until this second hand part fails and I have to do it all again. Once they are back in stock new I'll grab one or 2 for the parts collection.

[soviet_merlin]

15 minutes ago, Duncan said:

No wonder it had not been working correctly from the start, the Titan and Navara use the same connector so it plugs in fine, but different wiring. Thanks Nissan.

(incidentally while doing this job I also worked out the fresh/recirc controller also has compatible plugs but opposite wiring, meaning for 5 years we had the unit on recirc when we thought it was fresh, and also explaining why choosing windscreen demist on the controls had always released a stream of fog onto the windshield......must fix that one day too).

Oh wow, that's a good one! Surely it must have been quite satisfying finally working this out

[PranK]

2 hours ago, Duncan said:

Thanks Nissan.

Ha haha this is such a BMW thing to do. My sports seats (from an M Sport) had the same plugs with the non sports I was replacing ... But .. the pins were in different locations. No more making fun of my cars D.

2 hours ago, Duncan said:

....Kel's car now has full cold, full hot, AND options in between.

OMG, so satisfying! Well done! 

That's pretty shit about the steps. Does this mean you bought the replacements? Surely, legally, they need to provide those conditions with the part? 

[Duncan]

Oh I am totally still making fun of BMWs

I can only think that moving the pins but keeping the plug and actuator shell the same must have been a running change to fix some weakness in the actuator by improving the internal track layouts, and they already had 10,000 of those connectors in stock to use.....but what a mind f**k

Also, it must mean that the old actuator had been working all that time by having power sent from the control unit via the sensing pins and mechanism to the motor, but still it worked for 5+ years....and still it was the motor that failed not the tracks.

Give me a simple old R32 GTR any day (my father in law, with his 60s fords, just spat out his coffee)