Rear A/C stops, $1.29 part

Kris’s Pilot had its first part failure, the rear A/C blower. Mind you, the truck isn’t very large, not enough for me to think it needs a rear A/C. However, someone thought so and it broke. I checked all the fuses and they all checked out fine. There are 4 fuse blocks; two under the hood and two inside, on each side. Wow, seriously?. I remember the day when it was one fuse box and you could make a quick glance to see if one blew. And when it did, it was black on the glass. Simple! Oh, but not today. Today’s cars you need to pull each one.

Oh well. Come to find out it was a thermal cutoff (TCO for the hard core geeks) that failed.


Tiny TCO. A Honda $250 special for a $.48 part

I suspect it was the dirt clogged filter in front of the intake on the blower. Sprayed that out. Nice shinny grill now. No sweat. Honda could happily replace the failed part for ~$250. The Honda part only was ~$100. I found the exact TCO, 133c, 2A, in China for $.45. Seriously, Honda - give me a break. Austin and I headed to Radio Shack to find one rated at 144. Good enough. I got it home soldered the pieces. Kris got home with the truck and I put the part in. Whamo! Rear air! But, man is it pumping air now. I can see the kid’s hair blowing as if their heads were out the window!

All in all, it cost me a few bucks and about 15 minutes of my time. And, most of that was waiting for the soldering iron to warm up. :)