Access to heater blower

[stanrob]

Please forgive me for opening a new thread on what may be an old subject. I see heater blower powering problems but not access problems. So here goes:

I've got leaves (or something) rattling around in my heater blower assembly, slowing down the blower.
I went to get access and I see inaccessible screws on the assembly. How does one get at those screws?

[Petros]

It is not so bad, you just have to do them in sequence. You can not remove just the motor with the squirrel cage, you have to remove the housing from under the dash to get to all of the fasteners.

Even so, it goes quicky if you use a cordless drill: remove the glove box, the speaker cover trim and the cross beam that holds the glove box hinges. these are all philips screws. Than put a 10mm socket on the cordless drill (you will need an adapter), or you can just use a 1/4" drive ratchet (this is usually what I do, I have also used a screw driver type handle), and you remove a number of 10 mm nuts (there are 4 or 5 of them all around the blower assembly), and I think there a few bolts. They hold the assembly up under the dash, against the firewall (these require a long extension on the 1/4" drive), and also between the blower housing and the a/c duct or the heater duct if you have no a/c. There is one up under the dash you need to use a 10mm open end wrench on because of access (it is straight up from the glove box location, right behind the dash). You can also loosen (no need to remove them) the fasteners on the duct the blower housing attaches to, to give you some leeway to wiggle it out. Once you locate all of the screws the whole assembly can be removed in under ten min.

there are a couple of electrical connectors, pull those, and the whole assembly can be wiggled free and it will fall out. than you can remove the motor itself with three philips screws as I recall.

this will give you access to the ducts, and the seals, which sometimes get dried up and leak air, they can be fixed with generic foam weather strip.

I have done this lots of times on mine, and other forum member's cars to replace the blower motor. I need to do it with my daily driver because I also hear funny noises when it is on high (annoying noises mostly). I have also found mouse nests, and even dead mice in there this time of year. they find the duct I guess a nice place to make a home.

Good luck.

[xirdneh]

a brave mouse can drop down on top of the fan blade housing from the fresh air intake under the metal shield in front of the windshield (where wiper mechanisms are) but would be trapped there

[ARCHINSTL]

Two good threads to consider as long as you are working on the blower - both with pix:
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2312&p=18306&hilit=leaf#p18306
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=9357&hilit=cowl
Tom M.

[stanrob]

Greetings Brothers! Finally, Thanksgiving Day was warm enough to dive in. I’ve now performed the steps laid out by Brother Petros -- all the way up to: “You can also loosen (no need to remove them) the fasteners on the duct the blower housing attaches to, to give you some leeway to wiggle it out.”

Now, I am puzzled by this advice.

I’m also puzzled by the subsequent reference to “a couple of electrical connectors.” I found and disconnected the motor power leads, but I don’t see what else needs to be disconnected.

Today (Black Friday) is the 2nd and last nice day for a while, so I’d like to dive in again and finish this job. On the other hand, as you may deduce, I’m afraid of creating havoc.

Indeed, more wiggle room is evidently needed! The blower assembly with all its mounting bolts out is nice and loose, but it still refuses to shift rightward far enough to disengage with that duct. My problem is that I don’t see loosenable fasteners “on” that duct. I see a couple of clips, but they don’t loosen, they can only be pried off. I also see one vertical Phillips head screw. That duct has mounting bolts at its rear on the firewall. Would loosening those bolts be what you meant?

While I’ve got your attention: My blower won’t run at its lower two speeds. I need to get my hands on the blower resister. The 85 FSM, BE-7 and BE-35, is a big tease. I suspect it’s in the block of relays on the right inner fender. But which piece is it?

(Some – but not all - of Petros’s steps correlate with those of Brother Ace on the thread you guys alerted me to. His procedure at the end involves removing a white part held by one screw. Evidently Ace’s 83 w/o AC has a white part that my 85 w/AC doesn’t have.)

[ARCHINSTL]

@ stanrob - a few links about the resistor:
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=9546&hilit=resistor (lots of pix)
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=11726&hilit=resistor
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=9779&hilit=resistor (even more on removal)
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=3651&hilit=resistor
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=3651&start=15 (more pix from dlb!)
Tom M.

[Petros]

I wrote my procedure from memory, having remove one last time several years ago (so there might be some minor errors). but I do remember not having to remove the duct, just loosening it. on a non-a/c car the duct come out easy anyway, but with the a/c the evaporator is in the duct and it does not come out so easy because of the Freon lines going through the firewall. so if you loosen the duct, rather than remove it, it gives you some wiggle room to get the blower housing free.

yes, that is coorect, one electrical connector on the motor, but I seemed to recall another, it was the one on the buzzer or what ever it is, that mounts on the strut that holds the glove box.

[stanrob]

For this project, I seem to be utterly dependent on hand-holding. Well, once again I’m stuck and I’m coming back for even more hand-holding.

Current goal: to loosen the duct the blower feeds into (per Petros’s advice) in order to accommodate removal of the already-dismounted blower assembly.

Current history: I’ve removed that duct’s two mounting bolts and now it will shift a little bit. But nowhere near enough. I also removed a bolt on the firewall midlevel on the duct’s left side, but soon learned it has no relation to the duct. I haven’t yet seen any other bolts to remove or loosen.

Finally, my new questions:
(1) Am I neglecting an important bolt?
It appears that that duct can be split into an upper and lower part. These are bound together by two metal spring clips and two vertical Philips-head screws.
(2) What am I risking by removing the aforementioned clips and screws?

[Petros]

If your car has the ac evaporator in that duct, you will not get it out with removing the refrigerant and removing the a/c hoses. the non-ac duct is one piece and does not split, it comes out in one piece easy after you remove the screws and nuts.

the a/c duct however has metal clips holding it together to allow access to the evaporator, do not remove these clips unless you remove the whole assembly. You have to remove the high pressure a/c hoses from the evaporator at the engine compartment side to be able to remove the a/c equipped duct to allow you to remove the whole assembly. if your ac works and is full of refrigerant than I would not remove the duct, just remove all of the mounting screws you can find and allow it to wiggle around enough to get the blower housing to drop down and out. that is what I have always done. It has been a while so I do not remember speicfics other than getting it all loose and than being able to wiggle out the blower assembly.

[stanrob]

This is awkward! Brother Petros is one of my hard-working heroes, but in this case he says he doesn’t remember the specifics that I’m seeking. (For details, see the previous two posts.) Meanwhile, I’m stymied. Is it possible that one of you other stalwarts has been through this recently enough to rescue me, or at least to know the answers to my two numbered questions (two postings up)?

My SR5 is indeed equipped with AC, so that duct is a big challenge. (The AC hasn’t worked since we got that car, but I’ve always assumed it was just a matter of loading it with refrigerant, perhaps troubleshooting for leaks.) As I previously reported, removing the two mounting bolts I’ve found does not allow sufficient wiggle.

[irowiki]

When I did it on my AC car, I had to loosen the AC duct then brute force wiggle the blower duct out. It was hard, but it was doable!

[stanrob]

FINALLY GOT IT OUT! HOORAY!
Huge quantity of stuff inside. Pictures coming.
Now must clean it up and put it back together.
THANK YOU, my friends, for holding my hand.

[stanrob]

Cleaned up, mostly put together, and working now. Wow, feel that airflow!
Remaining to be done: reinstall dash crosspiece, speaker cover, and glovebox.
However, I made a stupid mistake going in: not keeping track of which bolts/nuts/screws went where.
Now I've got two machine bolts, two sheet metal bolts, and three sheet metal screws to finish this job.
The crosspiece's mounting holes appear to be for machine threading (versus sheet metal).
Neither type seems to be capable of firmly securing the left end of that crosspiece.
Have you guys run into this nuisance?

[irowiki]

Sheet metal screws might hold ducts in!

[stanrob]

I promised a picture, here is one.