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Coolair Logan install on 200 Tdi

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11K views 43 replies 8 participants last post by  Red90 
#1 ·
My truck is a '91 200Tdi 110 that I recently acquired from Johan and it is a great truck. In the process of acquiring the truck, I also acquired an A/C system for it and I elected to install it myself. The A/C system is new in box and is the Rovers North/Coolair Logan system for a LHD 200Tdi. I'm struggling a bit with the install and hoping someone here may have installed one of these, or can answer my questions via their general knowledge of the trucks.

After a bit of frustration around determining where to cut holes in the firewall, I have the in-cab unit mounted to the dash. I need to finish the wiring for the unit inside the truck and am a little confused as to what wires I need to tap. The instructions say some trucks have a seven way brown plug inside the truck, which I don't have. As such, the instructions say:

Connect an ignition feed into the brown wire.
Connect 30A main feed into the black wire.
Connect an earth into the blue and black wire.


Can someone help me identify what color and gauge wire I might best tap for these instructions. This all needs to be in the fuse box.

I discovered today that I needed to order a spanner wrench that I don't currently own in order to get the water pump coupling/fan off. I'll find out later what I'm confused about under the hood later. The instructions are pretty weak and causing a lot of self discovery to install what I've seen so far.
 
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#2 ·
Your 91 won't have the plug as they didn't start until 1998.
White IG (+) wire to Brown.
Run a wire from the (+) post on the starter ring to Black.
Connect Blue with Black stripe to a good ground source (+).
On the Webasto units, we wire a relay to run the cooling fan.
We get the (+) power from the compressor wire and connect it to relay spade 86 (+).
Relay spade 85 is ground (-).
We run a brown wire from the (+) starter post on the starter to relay spade 30 (+).
Relay spade 87 (+) goes to the (+) condenser cooling fan, while the other cooling fan wire is grounded (-).
DO NOT run any of the ground wires directly from the (-) battery post.
Hope this is useful.
 
#4 · (Edited)
All of these wires you'll have to make up.
DO NOT use the cheap crimp connectors that come apart and start fires.
I solder all electrical connections and use the Lucas style bullet and sleeve connectors purchased from British wiring.
We drill the end of the bullet to expose the brass, use the bullet crimping tool, and solder the wire tip to the bullet.
You'll need to file off any excess solder that prevents the bullet from entering the sleeve connector.
The round eye connectors for the starter solenoid you can buy at most any electrical supplier.

https://www.autosparks.co.uk/electrical-components/bullets-connector-sleeves.html
 
#5 ·
All of these wires you'll have to make up.
DO NOT use the cheap crimp connectors that come apart and start fires.
I solder all electrical connections and use the Lucas style bullet and sleeve connectors purchased from British wiring.
We drill the end of the bullet to expose the brass, use the bullet crimping tool, and solder the wire tip to the bullet.
You'll need to file off any excess solder that prevents the bullet from entering the sleeve connector.
The round eye connectors for the starter solenoid connection you can buy at most any electrical supplier.

https://www.autosparks.co.uk/electrical-components/bullets-connector-sleeves.html
Funny you should share that info. I was just sitting here doing a mental inventory of the electrical bits I have in the garage and thinking about what I needed to pick up at lunch tomorrow. I'll check out the Lucas style connectors you mention as I'm unfamiliar with them, this is my first Defender. If my electrical work needs to wait a few days for materials to ship to me, I can wait. I do wish to do this correctly and know better than to use scotch locks, although my soldering skills are suspect.
 
#7 ·
I've tried to install the electric as advised here but I'm struggling with finding the correct connection. I've run the brown harness wire to an ignition hot wire in the fuse box. I've run a good ground to the blue/black wire. The instructed "black" wire in the unit harness, which is actually white, is what I'm struggling with. I can't physically see the starter connections without taking a coolant manifold off the truck or using a mirror. That wire can't be constant hot so where else can I find an adequate "ignition feed"?
 
#8 ·
Are you looking for a switched accessory circut (only on when truck is running or in the on position) ? Any sold white wire.


When you say coolant manifold I'm assuming you mean intake or exhaust manifold?

Also do you have a wiring diagram for the engine? Makes it much easier
 
#10 ·
Ok so that's a constant hot from the battery. Not a switched circuit.

Two choices:

Remove downpipe for easier access to the starter post and connect

Or

Run a large 8/10 gauge wire to the battery


You may need to remove the exhaust manifold if you have a discovery 200tdi to get to the starter post easily.... Or get it from below. It doesn't sound like you are very confident when it comes to electrical, I'd geta buddy to check your work before firing it up to avoid a fire or damage.
 
#11 ·
I think my error may be the connection I made in the fuse box for the ignition wire to brown. I grabbed a white wire that also has a red stripe on the back of the starter relay because it was of equal gauge as the brown wire in the unit harness, that being 10 gauge. I'm not sure why the brown wire in the unit harness would be 10 gauge when it is to be connected to an ignition feed. All the solid white wires I see are 18 gauge, or at least significantly smaller than the brown wire. It concerns me that I'll burn up a curcuit if I connect the unit harness brown to a solid white wire.

I feel like I need to reach out to the guys that make the unit to better understand the intended load on each of the two unit harness power wires.
 
#13 · (Edited)
The white/red wire is the start signal from the starter relay. You are correct, bad choice.

I’m not familiar with your particular a/c unit, but most have a heavy gauge wire that should be connected to B+ (battery constant hot) that feeds a relay in the a/c controller (pin 30). There is then a lighter gauge wire (18ga) that connects to an ignition source (hot only with key in “ON” position). One of the solid white wires (no stripes) from the ignition key can satisfy this. When you turn on the a/c with the engine running, the ignition source wire energizes the relay (pin 86), the compressor clutch and applies voltage to the blower switch where you select blower speed. The four wire connections typically required are:

1. Heavy gauge B+ (connect to battery lug on the starter)
2. Heavy gauge ground (connect to the engine block)
3. Light gauge ignition source (connect to solid white wire - fuse 3, 5, 16 or 18 are a good source)
4. Medium gauge compressor clutch (connect to compressor on engine)
 
#14 ·
Here is a photo of the three wires that were in the brown seven pin connector, that I don't have a mate for. The instructions I have are in bold in the first post. It appears I'm color blind and the black/blue wire is only blue. I'm not sure how I missed that.
 

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#16 ·
There should already be a power relay built into the control unit. Please post a picture of the back of the control unit so we can see where those wires go.
 
#17 · (Edited)
Sorry, I don't have any pictures of the back of it, it is already installed under the dash. Never mind I haven't discovered where the evaporator drain tube hooks up and where to drill the hole in the firewall for it to pass through. If I take the unit down tomorrow trying to work out the drain, I'll grab a picture of what I can see. Most of the back of it is enclosed with no exposed wires or ports for a drain.

BTW, thanks for all the help so far everyone, I am grateful.
 
#18 ·
I'd rather see a 30 amp fuse on that heavy gauge wire than trying to wire a relay in there where it probably isn't needed.
 
#19 · (Edited)
Fuse will blow out.
With the start up surge of the condenser fan, compressor, evaporator blower, and internal circuit board with fan and condenser relays, the surge will blow a 40 AMP fuse.

When we wire the Diavia AC units, we use a 200 AMP relay to ensure there won't be any current spikes that stress the main current feed.
Anything worth wiring for reliability is worth overdoing to avoid future problems.
.
.
 
#20 ·
Why?

Also, why put a relay on a high current line that already feeds a relay?

Interestingly, RN only posted the instructions for the 300tdi and two V8s on their website. However, all three say the heavy gauge goes directly to B+. This must be in line with LR's curious approach to not fusing some circuits, however this also creates a very high probability that there is already a relay in the control unit.
 
#22 · (Edited)
Sounds like a couplel posting havent seen or installed a Coolair Logan kit. The harness is complete with relays etc. As the original poster indicated you simply need to ground it ( I use the ground point on the bulkhead that the main harness grounds to) and then constant?brown power and switched /white. All that is required is to plug it in. On early trucks, I plug into the heavy gauge white and brown in the center of the dash where the harness comes through the bulkhead using bullet connectors There are plugs there. This makes for a much cleaner install rather than trying to tap in behind the fuse box or running extra unecessary wiring where there is already too much going on.
 
#27 ·
Due to the vagueness of the instructions that were sent with the kit, I've spent far more time staring at the parts and the truck trying to figure out what goes where. I've probably got 16 hours in the install but I'm done other than getting the system purged and charged. I'll try to get the truck to an AC shop one day this week.

no, that is unecessary. the harness is well designed with yelays and fuses.

------ Follow up post added November 26th, 2017 08:13 AM ------



http://c0007716.cdn2.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/instructions/RNAC39I.pdf
Too late for me, I bought relays last night and wired it all up this morning before I saw this. The instructions you link to are far better than the ones supplied from AirLogan. My kit came directly from them, not via RN.

Thank you all for trying and succeeding at helping me out with this.
 
#28 ·
Just to close the loop on this, I got the system charged yesterday and it works great. I had a power issue that my blower fan wasn't running but while talking to a very helpful engineer at AirLogan via phone, the AC tech I was working with at the shop found a wire loose in the harness, feeding power to the blower fan. Once that was pushed back on, all was working and the unit does what it is suppose to.

Now we discovered my viscous coupling on my engine fan appears to be shot and not moving enough air so I'm going to need to fix/replace/upgrade that system. It looks like a new coupling isn't all that expensive so I'll likely just replace that, as opposed to putting on an electric fan, at least for now.
 
#29 ·
Now we discovered my viscous coupling on my engine fan appears to be shot and not moving enough air so I'm going to need to fix/replace/upgrade that system. It looks like a new coupling isn't all that expensive so I'll likely just replace that, as opposed to putting on an electric fan, at least for now.
You do understand the viscous unit only locks up when the engine is hotter than it should be normally. It is no use for air conditioning. You need an electric fan.
 
#31 ·
The clutch fan won't lock up idling. The engine will never get hot enough to engage it. You need to work a TDI VERY hard to lock up the viscous unit.

You need an electric fan.
 
#32 · (Edited)
I use dual electric fans, one pusher and 1 puller that replaces the clutch fan.
Then install a thermo-switch in the top of the water outlet.
When the AC is turned on. both fans push/pull a lot of air and the AC stays cold on the hottest day.
When the thermo-switch contacts close both fans come on to cool the engine.
They are both operated by relays.
Works like 10 muthalikkas.

This picture shows the thermo-sensor-switch on top of the coolant outlet.
Note the 140 AMP alternator mounted next to the AC compressor and Mercedes Power Steering pump with built in reservoir opposite.
 

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#34 ·
If this a normal 200TDI in the stock location, you have all the room in the world behind the radiator. The Taurus 2 speed fan fits really nicely and gives you the easy option of running it low speed with the air con.
 
#37 ·
Here is another option
 

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#40 ·
Unless you cut and fit rubber flaps in that section, when normal driving the flaps open letting the air past, when fan runs the flaps shut stopping suck back.
 
#41 ·
The pressures involved are not high enough to get that to work, IMO. I can tell you that removing my shroud reduced IATs and EGTs a significant amount. There is not much cause for a fan on an intercooler as sustained full throttle at low speed is a hard thing to do.
 
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