Anyone with this blower motor experience?

[Ednamillion]

Just readying the car for sale...sob....and so am trying to tidy some little things up.

One was an intermittently working heater fan. Just took it out to lube it up in case that was the issue.

Putting a meter on the feed to it it's reading about 9.5v from 0 through fan settings 1,2 & 3. on setting 4 it goes to about 10.3 and on 5 it reads about 11.7. When I turn to speed 5 I feel a relay(?) click also.

Hooking up the fan, with the direction set to say feet level, turning the fan to 1 starts the motor but then after about two seconds the fan stops. This happens a number of times and on other speeds. However...setting the directional controller to 'auto', fan works each time. Fan also subsequently works on other direction settings and speeds...Other thing I noticed was that speeds 3 and 4 seem to be about the same (no apparent increase in fan revs).

Any thoughts? Fan wasn't/isn't noisy before or now.

[rogerthechorister]

How do you get that blower motor out? Mine is noisy.

[Ednamillion]

Originally Posted by rogerthechorister

How do you get that blower motor out? Mine is noisy.

In mine it's just by removing the horizontal panel directly above the passengers feet/below the glove compartment and then undoing three small screws holding the bottom-side moulding carrying the motor. Undo the connector (little awkward to get at round the back) and out it comes.

I've read that in some cases you need to remove the side panel to the left of the passengers feet, which I did, but I think I could have removed the motor with that still in place.

Btw, if you do get it out would you mind checking what voltage is being fed to the connector when switching through the different fan speeds? I think the fact that it is the same for my first three speeds suggests the resistor might be on the way out.

[TonyS9]

I doubt the motor being sticky is the problem. If you have the meter out, check what is happening to the fan supply when it cuts out. That will tell you where else to look.

Switches and protection components sometime cause problems.

There are usually different setups between air con, climate control, and non-AC. I don't have an auto setting on my non-AC car. You need to give details on the car and type of system.

[Ednamillion]

Originally Posted by TonyS9

I doubt the motor being sticky is the problem. If you have the meter out, check what is happening to the fan supply when it cuts out. That will tell you where else to look.

Switches and protection components sometime cause problems.

There are usually different setups between air con, climate control, and non-AC. I don't have an auto setting on my non-AC car. You need to give details on the car and type of system.

Well the car is as per the sig. The system (I believe) is the ECC.

I'm wondering if there might be an earthing problem. Do we know if there is an earth for/near-by the fan motor? Yesterday driving into town the fan wouldn't work, last night driving back it was pumping out lovely warm air...

[Ednamillion]

Ok.

It turns out I don't have a resistor controlling my blower fan motor. It's an ecc power stage....a control unit which has metal fins on the back poking into the fan generated air stream.

Has anyone dealt with one of these before or, perhaps, even has one lying around...?

[mjk164]

I had similar sort of problems with my cabin fan on my 1993 960, with an ECC unit. After 270000 miles I suspected the fan motor being tired. The motor has brushes (and they are probably just worn down) but you can't get at them without some force on the fan blades to remove it and to allow access; you will almost certainly break the blades. I simply replaced mine with a 2nd hand unit from Braydons at about £30 and all has been back to normal since. I think the fan motor is your problem as these ECC units rarely give trouble without showing an error code.

[Ednamillion]

Originally Posted by mjk164

I had similar sort of problems with my cabin fan on my 1993 960, with an ECC unit. After 270000 miles I suspected the fan motor being tired. The motor has brushes (and they are probably just worn down) but you can't get at them without some force on the fan blades to remove it and to allow access; you will almost certainly break the blades. I simply replaced mine with a 2nd hand unit from Braydons at about £30 and all has been back to normal since. I think the fan motor is your problem as these ECC units rarely give trouble without showing an error code.

Oh I have the 233 error code :sigh:.

The fact the fan runs well (smooth, quiet) when it decides to run, combined with the error code, leads me to think the problem is further upstream than the motor.

[mjk164]

If you are getting the 233 on the ECC diagnostic then in my view that is too much starting current due to worn brushes. I had that as well and, if by poking the fan gently through the hole for the sensor near to the fan, then it would run beautifully and silently until the next time it happened to be stopped at a poor brush contact area. You ought to be able to get a good used unit on a trial basis to see if it sorts your problem out.

[Ednamillion]

Originally Posted by mjk164

If you are getting the 233 on the ECC diagnostic then in my view that is too much starting current due to worn brushes. I had that as well and, if by poking the fan gently through the hole for the sensor near to the fan, then it would run beautifully and silently until the next time it happened to be stopped at a poor brush contact area. You ought to be able to get a good used unit on a trial basis to see if it sorts your problem out.

Really? The motor starts but stops again within a second or so. Also, do you know if there are two relays in the power stage unit? I only hear one click (switching to speed 5) when adjusting the fan speed.