Eberspächer B2l - Trying to get it working again

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poshbuggers
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Re: Eberspächer B2l - Trying to get it working again

Post by poshbuggers »

A quick look at the photo leads me to believe this is what is on there.

Image

The two main pipes go from the unit, through the floor (or if fitted inside through a cupboard wall etc) and exit on the two holed plate.

There is a control unit and a thermostat.

The longer thin pipe is an exhaust?

No idea what the triangular parts are for. Heatshield?

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Re: Eberspächer B2l - Trying to get it working again

Post by Oldiebut goodie »

Ooooeerrrrr... I wonder what happened there! :shock: Maybe someone at the factory was having an off day. :lol:
Is it the same on the sticker on the heater itself? They couldn't make the same mistake twice surely.
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Re: Eberspächer B2l - Trying to get it working again

Post by poshbuggers »

That is on the heater.

Perhaps it was wishful thinking on the early models :D

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Re: Eberspächer B2l - Trying to get it working again

Post by Oldiebut goodie »

That is an addon - it is riveted to the case. There should be a sticker on the heater as well as the riveted one on the case.
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Re: Eberspächer B2l - Trying to get it working again

Post by poshbuggers »

I haven't collected it yet (these are Ebay photos) but I wouldn't hold out much hope for a sticker looking at the state of the case.

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Re: Eberspächer B2l - Trying to get it working again

Post by Oldiebut goodie »

Don't be fooled by the outside - it can look brand new inside.
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Re: Eberspächer B2l - Trying to get it working again

Post by irishkeet »

Well I have just started refurbing another B2l...

Switches ordered today, casing is not great (maybe I can find a replacement)? but its in good inside again.
Both screw heads snapped off the Safety switch this time :roll:
Glowplug tested and working
Filter changed in pump

from the previous work I kept a load of paperwork. I dont know why I didnt put a link to irish.davids thread and I cant seem to find it now, but I did save a word copy........... so here is the write up originally done by irish.david which includes the switch information :mrgreen:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My eber started giving me trouble about a year ago. It seemed to be drawing a lot of current, cutting out after only a few minutes on battery and finally not running at all. As these heaters are so old now and no shop wanted to know so I decided that I was going to strip it down and fix it myself.

The most important document I was able to find on the internet was a pdf with the file name "Eberspacher B2L-D2L Install Manual.pdf ." This has information about fitting and operating the eber and, most importantly, wiring diagrams. Anyone who wants to know anything technical about there eber should start here. I have a copy but am currently on a cruise ship near south America til the end of Feb and internet time is very expensive. If people can't find this document on the web let me know and I will email it to one person who can then distribute it. The following info applies to a B2L eber that was attached to a 1986 Syncro Westy Joker.

Before starting work take the earth strap off both the main and leisure battery. This is not strictly necessary but is a sensible precaution before doing any major work on your van. To remove your eber you need to do the following. Start by removing the "Black buzzing box" and the shelf it sits on underneath the bench. You should then have access to the main eber control unit and wiring. Unclip the control unit and pull the electrical plug out of the bottom. Then undo any other electrical connections so the cable that runs down the air inlet is free.

Next climb underneath the van and undo the combustion air pipe, the exhaust and the fuel line from the inside edge of the eber. On the back side of the eber the air inlet and hot air exhaust pipes should be removed. After that the 4 blots holding the eber to the chassis can be removed. Be careful of the little rubber vibration dampers as they can break easily if not handled with care. If you do break one it is possible to glue it with a good expoxy glue as they operate in compression, not tension. With those bolts off the eber can be removed from the van.

The eber casing can be removed by undoing the million or so little screws around the centre line where the casing join can be seen. At this point my memory is a little hazy so the best thing before taking anything apart is to pause and take a mental (or real) picture of how everything looks and fits together. Once you get the outer shell and inner shell off you should be able to see all the components from page 13 of the eber manual in front of you.

Out of all those bits the most important ones to change are the temperature switch, the safety thermal cutout switch and the heating coil switch (labelled numbers 3, 4 and 8 respectively on page 11 of the eber manual). These are simple normally closed switches that are designed to open at a set temperature. Over the years they get stuck, contacts go bad, ceramic case starts to break down etc. These are off the shelf and can be ordered from Farnell for a few quid each. Only problem is that Farnell has a min £20 order but I think that Ringo ordered a few sets so you might be able to get some off him. The Farnell ordering information is below:

732473 MICROTHERM
55H12T944(250/200) 1 Complete £3.29 £3.29
Description: THERMAL SWITCH, N/C 250C; Temperature, opening:250°C; Temperature, closing:200°C; Voltage, contact AC max:250V; Current, contact max:10A; Approval Bodies:UL, CSA, VDE0631, DIN EN; Centres, fixing:24mm; Depth, external:19
732473 HONEST-WELL


T23A100ASR2-15 1 Complete £1.79 £1.79
Description: THERMAL SWITCH, N/C 100C; Temperature, opening:100°C; Temperature, closing:85°C; Voltage, contact AC max:250V; Current, contact max:10A; Approval Bodies:UL, VDE; Centres, fixing:24mm; Depth, external:17mm; Length / Height
1006845 HONEST-WELL


T23A050ASR2-15 1 Complete £1.79 £1.79
Description: THERMAL SWITCH, N/C 50C; Temperature, opening:50°C; Temperature, closing:35°C; Voltage, contact AC max:250V; Current, contact max:10A; Approval Bodies:UL, VDE; Centres, fixing:24mm; Depth, external:17mm; Length / Height,
1006842 HONEST-WELL


Unfortunately I can't remember exactly which values go in what location so you'll need to note the markings on the thermoswitches you remove to get the temperature rating. Only one I know for sure is that the overheat sensor is the highest value.

The only other temperature sensor in there is a little thermistor that's in a little tube just before the suction side of the electric motor that draws air in from the van. This is used by the thermostat to get the temperature of the air in the van so it knows if more or less heat is required. As this has no moving parts its normally pretty reliable and probably won't need replaced. You can check it by measuring the resistance between pins 2 and 3 of the electrical plug that went to the thermostat unit. While measuring the resistance get the thermistor between 2 fingers and the heat from your hand should make the resistance change. At the moment I've no idea what the resistance value should be for room temperature. Maybe anyone who gets this far could post what value they measured and we'll get an idea of what a "good" value is.

Next thing to do is to check the coil of the glow plug. Remove the glow plug, making note of what electrical connections went where, and inspect. Mine just needed a good clean but if yours looks too far gone it might need replaced. I think you can get them from Gunzl in Germany. You also need to measure the resistance between the spade connectors to check the heating coil. You should measure a small resistance. If you get an open circuit or a dead short you need a new glow plug.

After reinstalling the glow plug you can start boxing it back up. If you are feeling really confident you can strip it down further but if things have gone badly enough that this is necessary, you're probably better off getting a replacement eber. Re-installation is the opposite of removal (just more fiddly) but don't put the BBB shelf or unit on yet.

The number one reason for eber problems is low voltage cutout on startup. The reason for this is that when the eber starts up it needs to use the glow plug to heat the incoming combustion air so it doesn't just condense the petrol vapour on the walls of the combustion chamber causing an explosion risk. Glow plugs use a hell of a lot of power as they're basically little electric heaters. On startup the petrol eber will draw about 12A and the diesel 20A. The idea is that when they get up to temperature the heat in the eber means the glow plug isn't necessary and is shut off so the current consumption drops to just over 1A.

The problem occurs in this startup period when a combination of a battery not fully charged and cable losses cause the voltage AT THE EBER dropping to under 10.5v which causes it to shut down. Another possible cause of this is the thermostat switch that controls the glow plug in the petrol ebers being faulty and keeping the glow plug on even though it should have shut off. This puts a huge drain on the battery which eventually drops under the cutoff voltage stopping the eber. Luckily, if you've just followed the steps above, you've replaced the thermoswitches with new working ones.

The reason for the leisure battery not being fully charged are addressed in another story I wrote that's hidden in the Wiki under "Heavy duty battery charging." I still maintain that in vehicles as old as the ones we drive any long cable run that has to carry more than 10 - 20A should be replaced. Mocki has mentioned a solution by moving the starting battery to the engine bay but in my opinion that's more of a band aid than a solution and would actually make the leisure battery charging worse as well as reducing the voltage to the electrical equipment in the van (eg headlights, heater) when under load.

That being said, I do appreciate that it is a pain in the a*** running a new cable the length of the van so I'll focus on the eber cable losses. The eber manual states that the maximum cable loss from the battery to the eber is not to be more that 0.5V. This means that under startup the max resistance of the cable from the battery to the eber can be calculated as follows:

Petrol 0.5/12 = 0.042 Ohms
Diesel 0.5/20 = 0.025 Ohms

As you can see it doesn't take much for the cable to degrade enough so the eber won't start. A good test is to measure the voltage at the eber during startup. Connect everything up but don't put the eber control unit back into it's clip. Get a multimeter set on VDC and hold the probes in pins 3 and 4 on the electric plug on the control unit and switch the eber on. The voltage you read is the one the eber sees so if it dips anywhere near 10.5v then you're in trouble. If you're really flash and have 2 meters you can put one across the leisure battery and then try again. The difference between the readings is the cable loss.

There are 2 solutions. The first one is to replace the cable from the battery to the eber. This would be a huge nightmare as you need to remove all the kitchen units and would take ages. Not recommended.

The easiest thing to do is to add another 12v battery under the bench next to the BBB shelf. This has a number of avantages. You get more capacity in your leisure battery system, the new battery isn't likely to have too much high current use between it and the original leisure battery so cable losses are minimised and you have a really short run of cable between it and the eber so the eber voltage won't ever drop under 10.5v even with the glow plug in use.

All you need to do is run an earth strap from the chassis to the negative terminal and connect both the +12v supply from the BBB to the leisure battery and the 12v supply to the eber to the positive terminal and you're set. I used a 63Amp.hr car battery and built a wooden shelf over it but if you're concerned about space you could just as well use a small 12v leisure battery from a golf cart or something. It's just basically be used as a buffer between the leisure battery and the eber.

As far as I can see I've covered most of the things that people seem to have trouble with. I would have put pictures up if I had any but unfortunately I won't be able to take any until March. If anyone has any questions feel free to ask.

Dave

PS: I know some people go to some lengths to "balance" the combustion and exhaust side. My personal feeling is that this really isn't necessary. The manual states that as long as the combustion intake pipe is less than 1.5m long and the exhaust is less than 2m you'll be fine.
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cheers
irishkeet :mrgreen:
Last edited by irishkeet on 12 Sep 2018, 09:42, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Eberspächer B2l - Trying to get it working again

Post by irishkeet »

I think this was also from irish.davids original thread....
Image
Last edited by irishkeet on 30 Jul 2018, 14:52, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Eberspächer B2l - Trying to get it working again

Post by irishkeet »

So the Eber B2l is back together and ready to bench test but I am having a bit of trouble connecting it all up and getting it to run, can someone advise on connecting it please. Battery is charged and in good nick.
Image

I am guessing both cables below need power, I did connect them and I got a light on the thermostat controller and it clicked but nothing else.

Here I connected Positive 2 Red & Negative 2 Brown
Image


Here I connected Positive 2 Red & Negative 2 Brown - Should the Yellow cable be connected to anything?
Image

Image

cheers
irishkeet
Last edited by irishkeet on 30 Jul 2018, 14:54, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Eberspächer B2l - Trying to get it working again

Post by Oldiebut goodie »

The first thing that I can see that you are doing wrong - It looks like a D2L not a B2L! (Wrong plug and no spark generator)

I would not even contemplate trying to run it in the state that it is in - the circuit board looks as though it has been soaking in rusty water. It needs a complete strip, all terminals replacing and most probably joints remaking. Likewise the glow plug connections - those stupid crimps look as though they have been exposed to the elements with the rubber boot missing. Most of the cables will have corrosion internally and in all the crimps due to the water ingress. It looks like the whole heater has been submerged for a while.

Are you following the correct wiring diagram? - as I can't see why you are applying power and earth to the thermostat lead connector - just connect the heater wiring to the thermostat correctly. The yellow is the switch on signal from the thermostat.
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Re: Eberspächer B2l - Trying to get it working again

Post by irishkeet »

Oldiebut goodie wrote:The first thing that I can see that you are doing wrong - It looks like a D2L not a B2L! (Wrong plug and no spark generator)

I would not even contemplate trying to run it in the state that it is in - the circuit board looks as though it has been soaking in rusty water. It needs a complete strip, all terminals replacing and most probably joints remaking. Likewise the glow plug connections - those stupid crimps look as though they have been exposed to the elements with the rubber boot missing. Most of the cables will have corrosion internally and in all the crimps due to the water ingress. It looks like the whole heater has been submerged for a while.

Are you following the correct wiring diagram? - as I can't see why you are applying power and earth to the thermostat lead connector - just connect the heater wiring to the thermostat correctly. The yellow is the switch on signal from the thermostat.

Hi Oldiebut goodie

Many thanks, I was sure it was a B2l but of course the blue spark box is missing!
I have cleaned up all the terminals but I will change the glow plug connections

Are you following the correct wiring diagram? - as I can't see why you are applying power and earth to the thermostat lead connector - just connect the heater wiring to the thermostat correctly. The yellow is the switch on signal from the thermostat


I cant see any way of connecting the heater wiring to the thermostat correctly.

hope this makes sense

cheers
Keith
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Re: Eberspächer B2l - Trying to get it working again

Post by Oldiebut goodie »

It also looks like you have the wrong thermostat for that wiring also - the wiring appears to be for a simple on/off thermostat yet the thermostat is one that drops the heater to 1/2 heat (hard to make out in photo though). Which wiring diagram are you following?
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Re: Eberspächer B2l - Trying to get it working again

Post by irishkeet »

Oldiebut goodie wrote:It also looks like you have the wrong thermostat for that wiring also - the wiring appears to be for a simple on/off thermostat yet the thermostat is one that drops the heater to 1/2 heat (hard to make out in photo though). Which wiring diagram are you following?

Hi OG

Ill get some photos of all the bits I have, a decent B2l arrived in the post today but needs the wiring looking at hence my PM

thanks
keith
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Re: Eberspächer B2l - Trying to get it working again

Post by jacobh »

I'm in the process of reviving a B2l. I read most of what I could find on here. But have a question about the foam
that is around the fan. In my unit it is completely disintegrated. I would like know with what I can replace it.
Does it needs to be heat resistance to what temperature ?

Jacob

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Re: Eberspächer B2l - Trying to get it working again

Post by cuftausosu »

Hi everyone,

I'm trying to get my B2l working again too. The problem with my B2l is ignition spark generator. It doesn't work any more.
I made some research and found out its very dificult to find ignition spark generator for this model...or maybe I didn't look on right places :)
So, I would like to know is it possible to use some ignition spark generator from some other models of Eberspacher?

Thanks in advance for help :)


Many greetings from Belgrade :)

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