The Wavey heater blower motor fix

[ianc]

Hi folks,

I was having some serious heart-rending difficulties with my heater blower motor a few weeks back. I must have tried everything to fix the bugger. See here:

My dear departed heater blower fan

Since the cost of a new motor is around $250, I wasn't all that keen to shell for a new one. I began to look at used ones, but then I happened on a thread by a fellow named Wavey (bless his heart).

Wavey's idea was just to mount an inexpensive American motor to the shroud and fan, and he gave some details as to how he did it, but was a little light in the photo dept, so I decided to add this.

Grainger sells a very inexpensive 12V motor (I paid $24.75 US) which will work in the application. Unfortunately, Grainger does not sell retail, but luckily I had a friend whose company has an account, so he was able to get one for me. It's made by Dayton, and the Grainger part # is 2M197.

The only trouble with this is that the Grainger motor's output shaft is only 1/4", whereas the ID of the blower fan is 5/16th, so you need to find a bushing. I located one at OSH and it worked perfectly.

The idea is to remove a couple of the fan blades to gain access to the inner hub of the fan (one for balance), then drill and tap the hub for a set screw to hold the fan on the motor shaft (the bushing needs to be drilled too). I used a 5mm-80 screw I found at a local auto parts store. Here's a pic of the bushing in the fan:



Wavey made an adapter out of sheet of scrap, but another fellow in the thread said he was able to adapt the endplate of the original motor by grinding it. I tried this, but it near killed my poor little dremel, so at about midnight I gave in and fabbed a mounting plate from an old front suspension cover I had outside. Trace the original motor's outline with a scribe, cut out with tin snips and drill some holes:



A little black rattle can action so it doesn't look like complete poo, mount the plate to the shroud, then fix the fan to the shaft:



Voila! a $30 fix for a vexing $250 problem! Thanks Wavey, and hope this helps someone save a buck or two:



ianc