Did I Break My Heater Control Valve?

[gkmotorsport]

Hi all,

Desperate for some advice here - I have just taken the windscreen trim off to investigate the heater control valve on my 2001 Ka, as I have no heat. When I touched the top of the valve in order to remove the electrical connector, one of the hoses has fallen off and doesn't seem to want to go back on - see pic. I didn't feel a snap when it happened, so I think it may have just been seriously aged plastic.

Do I now need a new HCV? Or is there some way to connect this hose to one of the others, to temporarily cut it out of the loop?

In any case, I connected a multimeter to the connector and it hovers around 12v even when I moved the heat control inside the car. Does this mean I also need a new set of knobs?

Any help greatly appreciated!

[delboy]

the hose is ok its the housing thats had its day as you said the plastic has gone brittle so needs replacing..

scrapyard should have something

[robbra]

Hi,

Had the same on mine this week so got a new one from eBay, (transit parts the seller) for about £9.00 and delivered next day. Can't ask for a quicker response.

Make sure you get all the broken stub out of the hose.

Rob

[btmaldon]

You could loop the two pipes together but obviously you wont have any heat and as these are so cheap and reasonably easy to replace, you may as well fix it permanently.

[delboy]

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Ford-Fiesta-KA-Puma-NEW-HEATER-CONTROL-VALVE-/150379416136?hash=item23034fca48:m:m6z7uSPvIAn4pJRI4yNkJhg

[gkmotorsport]

Thanks for the responses guys - I found a new one over here for 14€, so about the same price. Managed to fit it today, but I've run out of light for replacing the large plastic divider, which seems to need some bending in order to fit again

I also connected the multimeter to the cable again, and confirmed that it is only delivering 12v no matter what the position of the heater control. Am I right in thinking that a new dashboard unit is required? If so, does it matter whether the airflow control has six positions or three?

[gkmotorsport]

Little update - whilst driving to the shops this morning, the car suddenly started putting out hot air! I checked I still had cold as well, and celebrated as expected.

However, it is now stuck on hot air, so I guess I have an intermittent fault on the pot behind the switch. Heater control panels with the three-position dial are seemingly quite rare here, so I'm going to pull it out and find some switch cleaner. Fingers crossed...