rebuilding heater fan motor

[Rick V]

Has anybody tried to replace the brushes on the heater fan in the engine compartment? While driving my SC the heater made a vile screeching sound and the flow of heat was reduced by a bunch. I took the motor apart and found one of the brushes had come apart. now das is kaput! I perform unit replacement repaires all day long (it is cheeper for the customer) but on my stuff I like to re-build whenever posible. I still have good heat due to convection but I need to close off the fresh air vents. This sucks, I like lost of fresh air but the old bones can't handle the cold stuff.
P.S. this was a nightmare to re-assemble since the locator tabs for the nuts holding the motor cap to the body are also broken off, I believe this is the root cause of my problem

[Mysterytrain]

Personally, I think the heater motors cook back there. I've gone thru a few in my car it appears the bearings are the cause of the failures. Once I backdated the exhaust I removed the rear blower and installed footwell blowers. I think they are more effect, move alot more air and hopefully last a little longer then the one in the back. Unfortunately..the heat cooks these too.

[greglepore]

I did mine on a Carrera blower a season ago. Forget most of the details, but I used a set of brushes that I picked up from a Sears hardware, w/ some minor mods and a little solder. If you didn't trash the commutator too badly, its not a bad job-took me an hour of actual work and another hour or two of running around.

[walt]

I rebuillt mine with a motor from Grainger (2M197) back in 2000 for a cost of $24.00. It did require fabricating a few small parts to adapt it to the housing.

[Rick V]

Problem solved today The brushes were "donated" from a Bosch alt. I split the voltage regulator and there they were. A little work with a dremil tool (don't do this without a dust mask) and whammo new brushes!

[Superman]

I got brushes from an electric motor repair place. they're the same brushes they put in military Humvee alternators. Brushes can be found at any size. That's not the problem.

I think you will find that the problem is the front shaft bushing. It is a bushing where a metal marble with a hole in it is set into the front plate with little metal tabs. At least that's my best recollection. The marble can turn (don't know why they'd make it like this). The hole gets reamed out by the shaft (the hole has no brass bushing), and then it vibrates in the metal tabs and sings. Perhaps you can ream out the hole big enough to press a brass bushing in there. Or drill the whole thing out and put a very thick bushing in there. Or just use a different motor like Walt did with the Grainger motor, and make it fit into the housing. Again, I don't think the brushes cause the singing problem.

Ultimately, I backdated my heater hose system (and heat exchangers) and love it much more. More hot air, more engine access above and below, better looking, etc.

[Bill Verburg]

Way back when, I did rebuild mine. I found the brushes at a local electrical supply house. Worked fine for a few years til the plastic hoses and conectors began to fall apart

[Wavey]

Carrera replacement heater blower (long)

[ianc]

Forget trying to fix the fan:

My dear departed heater blower fan

My addendum to Wavey's post:

The Wavey heater blower motor fix

ianc