FWIW, the junkyard van photos show a non-A/C van. It's relatively easy to remove the blower motor from these ... with A/C, not so much.
Gwen
FWIW, the junkyard van photos show a non-A/C van. It's relatively easy to remove the blower motor from these ... with A/C, not so much.
Gwen
1985 5-speed window cargo van set up for llama haulin'; 345K ("Trustyvan")
1989 4WD 5-speed DLX; 410K and an odd sense of humor ("Skylervan")
New blower motor (four seasons from rockauto, $18) and resistor module on the way. I got the old motor out, but even with the knee bar pulled back farther than what looks to be the case in bald josh's pics, it still took a fair amount of force and finesse to get it out of the hole. I pulled the back plate off the old motor and one of the brushes fell out. The other one wasn't far behind. Diagnosis confirmed.
It's all back together and the new blower is blowing at 4 different speeds! A couple of things to mention: I had to pull really hard on the knee bar to make enough space to get the blower motor/squirrel cage in and out. I used a stout piece of wood stuck into the channel to get some extra leverage. A helper would be useful for this. I couldn't get the bolt that holds the top, passenger side of the dash to align. Had to drill a 1' hole through the dash to make that connection. Otherwise it was a pretty straightforward but "awkward" job. Glad that it's done and I hope the new blower motor lasts a long time.
Jumping on this thread because it seems most relevant.
I am cleaning up my temp spider cables with lube and have come across a problem where the mechanism for switching between fresh air / recirculated air is locking up. I hear a metallic screech as I push the assembly into the open / closed position. My previous spider broke at the switch due to the difficulty of the switch.
Image is upside-down- not sure how to fix that, hah.
My question is - how can I get this thing to move freely again? I've tried lubing the assembly with grease, but I'm thinking it's the door itself from the inside locking somewhere.
Can I access the vent door from the right side headlight?
Thanks for the help.
Originally Posted by cornell
Check out THIS THREAD. May or may not be the answer, but you'll want to assess the blend door first as a possible cause.
Gwen
1985 5-speed window cargo van set up for llama haulin'; 345K ("Trustyvan")
1989 4WD 5-speed DLX; 410K and an odd sense of humor ("Skylervan")
Thanks llamavan; This is a good start - that cable moves freely on my van. Does the recirculate / fresh air vent also move that door? Sorry, kind of confused about that.
The mechanism I'm talking about is on the side / rear of the blower housing.
It's been awhile since I've poked around that part of the van, but between your description, the EPC diagram, and my hazy recollection, I'm clearer on what you're dealing with. That's a different door than what I linked to (sorry) and I'm thinking that yes, you should be able to access that from the headlight (removing the ducting out of the blower motor case would do it as well, but if you have A/C, my experience is to not mess with that ducting unless left with no other option).
I had to replace my blower motor because some of the factory interior insulation/sound deadening material made its way into that door and clogged up the works. It's possible some of that stuff (or some other, non-OEM, flotsam) has found its way into that door and is keeping it from operating smoothly. The screech sound is odd, though ... are you are finding signs of water leakage into the area under the dash on the passenger side?
Gwen
1985 5-speed window cargo van set up for llama haulin'; 345K ("Trustyvan")
1989 4WD 5-speed DLX; 410K and an odd sense of humor ("Skylervan")
Yes, sadly - I have seen drips of water come through the windshield over there during periods of intense rain. It's probably rusted / corroded in such a way that needs extra lubrication or something.
I'll try the headlight and see what I can reach from back there. Alternatively I'll try to remove the entire casing by undoing the knee bar and fishing around back there maybe.
Hey guys,
In getting prepped to start this job I've put off for the past 5 years, I noticed that someone's already been in here and installed an aftermarket blower motor. Frustratingly, whoever replaced the motor hacked the harness and put it together using wire nuts like the ones you'd use in your house.
I have an old OEM unit I want to put in but now I need to properly repair the harness first beforehand. My questions are twofold. One, on the OEM unit, there's two positive symbols at the connector. Does that mean there's no polarity to this connection and I can wire it up either way? If that's the case, that'll make it that much easier for me to hookup since I need to splice in a new connector and colors aren't my strong suit.
Secondly, is there any real way to rebuild or do some "preventative maintenance" on these motors? I read the brushes can be replaced but that was the extent of it, I didn't see any part numbers or the like.
The + markings of the motor are just telling you what direction it will spin when you put positive to that terminal. You can randomly connect polarity, then check to see if the heater sucks or blows. If it sucks where it's supposed to blow, then reverse polarity. If you don't have the factory harness plug, you can hook it up using a couple of female spade connectors.
Brushes can be replaced in these motors, but by the time brushes wear out, the bushings are probably about gone (causes screeching), so it's usually best to just replace the entire thing. In an emergency situation I once took apart an old RV water pump, scavenged the brushes and put them in my wife's heater motor (86 Toyota Tercel). They were a little large, but the carbon/graphite they're made of is soft so I filed them down to size. Lol, that motor was still running when we sold the car years later, but I seem to remember the bushings were making some noise. FYI, brushes of many sizes can often be found in hardware stores with a big selection of bins with specialty small parts, so if you don't have a donor DC motor laying around, that would be the place to go. Tim
Tim,
Thanks for the quick response! I didn't even think about the motor spinning different directions but that makes sense.
One last question, will I damage anything if I directly wire my replacement unit to battery for testing purposes before I tear into it?
No, the motor is designed for up to ~ 15 VDC, so a 12V battery won't hurt anything. The lower speed settings are reduced voltage (lower voltage = lower speed), but running directly through a battery is like running it on high.
Ok, I finally finished up this job and oh man, does this part SUCK. However, I think I've found a solution that makes at least this step in particular, much easier. The solution? Endoscope. I had a cheapo $35 Amazon special laying around but, if you don't have one, buy one, rent one, steal one seriously if you value your life get one. The main issue here is you're either contorted or hunched over working in the dash of the van trying to "thread the needle" by stabbing the blower motor shaft into a blind hole on the cage wheel that falls freely as the wheel is not attached to the van in any other way. You can't really access the wheel in any meaningful way from either end to prop it up or manipulate it either while you're doing this, either.
Prior to this step, reassemble as this thread and logic would dictate, and once you get to this part you'll probably feel the urge to try and do it blind by feel for a few minutes. Give it a try and see how it goes. Once you're done with that, snake your endoscope between the black frame of the motor and the housing box and jiggle the scope around until the camera is pointing towards the end of the shaft. Now, you'll be able to clearly see what you're doing and you'll be able to at least get the tip of the shaft (giggity) resting in the hole. The clearance between the wheel and the frame of the motor is too tight to fully reassemble with the scope still in there but you just did the hard part, so carefully remove the scope, and carefully rotate the motor while gently applying forward pressure, and the notch on the shaft will line up with the wheel and it'll fully seat. From there, simply proceed to bust up your forearm tightening down the wheel from your chosen access point on the exterior of the van (I chose the cornering lens because I subconsciously hate my body) and you're "home free."
If you do it this way, this part is merely a mild annoyance and you may wonder why Tim says this is the worst part of an already dreadful job. We're all friends here so I'll admit I spent probably 4 *@#!*$ hours on just this part before I chucked the endoscope down there. Now I was hanging out in the garage with music and whiskey so it's not like it was 4 hours book-time but you get it. Also, this job really tears up your forearms so you need to take some time between reps to clean up the blood and let the indentations on your forearms go away. With the scope, I think it took 15, 20 seconds to line up the shaft with the hole, with another 20 to 30 seconds to fully seat the shaft to the wheel. After that, reassembly is reverse of disassembly.
A couple of other quick notes:
- I left my dash installed, and did not feel like I could get anywhere enough "give" by unbolting all the accessible crash bar bolts to remove the unit as one piece (motor and wheel) without cracking my dash assembly. Removing the bolts was still useful as it gives you enough wiggle room to finagle the motor out and back in but it's not the shortcut I was hoping it'd be.
- Come to terms with damaging your expensive and hard to replace cornering lens doing this job. I'm in the Southwest so prolonged dry heat and UV damage really do a number on plastics out here but all these vans are at least 35 years old at this point so it's rough for everyone now. I got "lucky" and merely cracked the housing where the post meets the body. Some JB weld and you'd never know what happened.
The van is all back together and I have a working blower motor for the first time in 5 years so it was a success but overall I'd rate it a 3/10 job I'd rather replace a clutch any day of the week before I tried this again.
Lol, I have had borescopes/endoscopes as long as I've had vans and it never occurred to me to use one here. I'll be sure to utilize one the next time. Hopefully that will be a long time from now. Thanks for taking the time to post. Tim
What's even dumber is I was using the scope for a while beforehand, but was trying to use it through the hole in the cornering lens (useless), or by removing the resistor and coming up from the bottom of the box (less than useless). As with most things, I had to sleep on it and the solution quickly revealed itself the next morning.
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