A few months back I began to work on getting my heater blower motor to
work. I took it to the shop that rebuilt my alternator and starter
(very friendly and helpful guys) to see what they could do about it.
The guy took one look at it and said "it's shot, armature's open on it,
it fried the wiring". I asked him if he could rebuild it and he said he
could hand wire a new motor for me, at the princely sum of $250. He
said he couldn't get replacement motors for them, that Bosch wouldn't
sell them to him. Didn't seem like the best option. I called around
and learned that Mesa Performance sells replacement motors (for a little
less than 100 dollars) but that I'd need to remove the old one and
install the new one. This looked a little daunting as I'd not been able
to get it out the first time I tried and the whole housing and fan are
plastic. It just looked.........scary. Whatever.......I bought one.
It showed up in its pretty yellow box the other day, so I took it, and
my old fan/motor assembly back to Autolectrics (Campbell, CA) to see if
they might know a thing or two about removing the old and installing the
new motor. Their shop guy took one look at it and shook his
head............"Scary he said..............difficult job......very
tricky". I knew he wasn't exaggerating. The output shaft of the motor
has the fan press on to it, rather tightly. The only way to get the fan
off is to press it off, but there is nothing solid around the assembly
to give good support, so you must be gentle. He said "lemme see it" and
disappeared behind the shop door. I heard compressed air, some sort of
spraying...........the gentle click click of what sounded like a
hydraulic press (probably very small). Several minutes later he
returned with a smile on his face, the old motor in one hand, and the
assembled fan in the other. Good job sir. Bravo. He did it. Cost me
$20. Happy to pay it.
Back at home one small hiccup was that the old motor and the new motor
had slightly different housings. On the metal original, it fit pretty
tightly in to the fan housing (almost an interference fit). But the new
motor had a little bit smaller OD and so without the clips that hold the
whole thing together it just floats around. There is a position in to
which the motor sort of "sits" nicely in the housing. From there, you
must get the four little springy clips that you took out to get the
motor out, back in. It's a little tricky, but it's possible. After ten
minutes or so of working on this, I had it back together. I haven't put
power to it yet, but I am confident the new motor will work.
So, those of you with inoperative heater blower fans, if you can't find
a good used working unit (which may be on its dying days anyway) there
is hope, at least until Mesa, and whoever else sells them, runs out of
these replacement motors.
Regards,
TJ
TJ Noto AFM #134 Cowpoke Racing-"Friends in Slow Places"
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