Hi all, sat in tesco car park with car running and air con on, when suddenly noticed smoke from front of bonnet , small fire behind grill, managed to put it out quickly through the grill with the carton of milk I had bought . Found to be air con fan, anyone had a similar experience ? . Unplugged the fan and got it home . Note to myself and others , fire extinguisher from my garage is now in the back of the car , if I didn't have the milk I could have lost the lot

was it full fat milk......sorry i couldnt resist



never heard of this , you were lucky it didnt get any worse. ... - .- -.




Y. O. L. O.
.

Nah semi skimmed had to put twice as much on, I agree very lucky . Anyone know how to remove the electric fan in front of rad please , looks like it may come off through the front ?

RAVE says grille off, front bumper (completely, including armature) off to get it out  .
Experience is the only genuine knowledge, but as time passes, I have forgotten more than I can remember
Volvo V70 P2 2006 2.4 Petrol 170bhp Estate SE
MG Midget Mk1 1962

Previous: L322 Range Rover TDV8 3.6 2008; L322 Range Rover TD6 3.0 2002; P38A Range Rover V8 1999

Thanks for info , will make a start tomorrow , just need to source a new fan now

2 or 3 here http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from=R40...p;_sacat=0

not the cheapest of things! but search down a bit there are a couple of cheaper ones .
Experience is the only genuine knowledge, but as time passes, I have forgotten more than I can remember
Volvo V70 P2 2006 2.4 Petrol 170bhp Estate SE
MG Midget Mk1 1962

Previous: L322 Range Rover TDV8 3.6 2008; L322 Range Rover TD6 3.0 2002; P38A Range Rover V8 1999

Thanks joe90 , replacement fan fitted today , fingers crossed all ok. Bumper was an adventure to remove / refit but managed to change a lot of dodgy fixings in the process . Found a bit more info on bmw sites , not a common fault but has happened on a few (it's a bmw fan) . Fire extinguisher now kept in the boot.

Since I saw a car go up in flames, in less than a minute, I've had an extinguisher in the boot. They are so cheap, it's silly not to. Mines strapped to the parcel shelf end support. So it's never hard to find. And it's a decent size, ie 2kg. Not one of those coke bottle sized ones.
You can get one, delivered for £13 here. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/301929383704
You could go with a better branded make, but all will be kite marked.

I know this is an old thread, but am resurrecting it to say that yesterday the same thing happened to my Td6: After a five mile gentle run I stopped but the left the engine running for five minutes or so, after which as I pulled away I became aware of smoke coming through the vents, and then realised that it was also emanating from under the front of the bonnet.

By the time I managed to get a 10mm spanner out of the tool box to disconnect the battery (note to self: tape a 10mm spanner next to the battery) the smoke had subsided, and the source wasn't immediately obvious. There was an acrid smell by the right hand headlight, but no signs of heat, and at the time of the incident the lights hadn't been on.

Eventually I gingerly reconnected the battery lead and one-by-one tested the car's electrical functions but couldn't find anything wrong.
It was only after looking through the electrical manuals looking for somewhere where there's a PCB at the front of the car (the smell of TCP being the give away) that I realised that it's the motor controller, which of course can't be manually tested. The confirmation being that Fuse 61 (one of the 50 Amp maxi fuses) in the glove box fuse board had popped.

Having search the web I find that BMW had a spate of these failures in the late nineties/early noughties, including vehicle fires, leading to a number of recall actions as late as 2010.

By 2002 though the problem seems to have been eradicated on the E53 X5, so I'm unsure whether the earlier design was fitted to the L322, or whether I and the OP have just been unlucky.

In closing might I suggest, however strange this may sound, that if you can smell TCP under the bonnet then get the air con fan motor checked asap, and in the meantime pull the connector at the top right hand corner of the radiator.

Once I've disassembled the motor and controller I'll post some pictures...

I have been doing some work on an 06 TD6 as it was immobilised and while running a snap on diagnostic we noticed a strong electrical burning smell and smoke poring out from behind the grill that I quickly sprayed with my garden hose pipe and disconnected the big plug at the top left of the rad. I removed the grille and tried reconnecting it without diagnostics plugged in and the same thing so left it disconnected.
I tried reconnecting it today now that it is all back up and running and no smoke but the fan didn't come on either but I don't think it got hot enough. I had the aircon on.
I'm going to disconnect it again I think and check the fuse and maybe time for a new fan.

For sure I need a new fan, and the options are:
1) Second hand from Ebay or similar, price £90 - £110, but no guarantee that it won’t also be nearing the end of its natural life.
2) New pattern part intended for an E53 X5, from HK or China at £170, and then swap over fan shroud.
3) New Hella part from Europe at £250.
4) New Land Rover part at £600+.

I chose the Hella option.

A couple of interesting points to note:
The original Land Rover part has since had a least three supercessions (i.e. four new part numbers, not just updated suffix) which makes me wonder how much trouble they’ve been quietly having.

The fact that the Chinese consider it worth making a pattern part makes indicates to me that they know that there’s an ongoing ready market, and that I find disturbing. Presumably JLR and BMW has no ongoing product liability for cars that are in excess of a decade old though, even from a safety point of view.

This is the inside of the fan motor and its controller:

Nice pic, mine is staying disconnected, that would explain the smoke and smell then, i think they get water in to them being right at the front or do you think the insulation breaks down ?

Despite the location of the fan I doubt that it's water ingress which caused the problem because the controller module is potted in a flexible silicon substance.

Instead I suspect that the lower (in the picture) IGBT/FET power transistor let go - its encapsulation package is absolutely destroyed, very much like what I used to see occasionally when I was designing switched mode motor controllers back in the early 80s.


As an aside: the replacement Hella item had been modified such that the circular logo of a well known Bavarian car maker which would otherwise be moulded into the fan body was ground away, and on the motor itself the 'OEM' part number sticker had been removed.
Despite the fact that they only list it for the petrol version I can report that this fan fits the Td6, and took a couple of hours to fit:
www.ebay.co.uk/itm/New-Genuine-HELLA-Radia...2040231687

Certainly produce a lot of smoke when they go, not what i wanted to see when we are trying to start an immobilised vehicle.
It was just coincidence I'm sure but put the willys up me !