Air conditioner rattles.

I have had an annoying rattle in our air conditioner that developed on our last trip. Dometic don’t talk to ‘members of the public’ & the local agent for Dometic in Sydney is not ‘user friendly’, So today I finally got around checking to see where the problem was.

After dismantling the covers on top, I found that the fan assembly that circulates air to the van was rubbing on the metal housing. (The other end of the fan assembly that cools the condenser was OK.) I did a simple fix by cutting a slot in a couple of washers & slipping them under the mounting bracket. This fixed the problem, but I wasn’t happy.

Because of the way the fan unit is assembled, it is difficult to closely examine the rubber mountings, these just didn’t seem right!

By pulling the metal sleeves out from the rubber mounts I found it possible to remove the mounting bracket, complete with the rubber bushes.

As I expected, these were completely worn out & the metal sleeves now were rubbing on the mounting bracket & were almost rubbed through to the mounting screws.

The fan mounting brackets are 1.5mm steel & the rubber bushes ride in 14mm holes in the brackets. This may be fine for stationary applications, but for a Bushtracker environment, the rubber bushes must wear out.

I could of course simply buy some new bushes & sleeves. I should also buy new mounting brackets, as the 14mm holes are now oval & 15mm top to bottom.

I believe a wider surface than the 1.5mm for the bushes to ride on would be preferable, but as a ‘member of the public’ I can’t discuss this problem with Dometic.

Has any Bogger had a similar problem & how did you resolve it?

I would like to do a permanent fix, so any advice would be appreciated

Neil