Flobb

Well I doubt anyone really cares, but I fixed my blower that was not working at all. Total cost for this project was UNDER ONE DOLLAR!

I am so fortunate to have simple problems, and so may be some other people.
Like most people when my blower wasn't working I turned to searching the forum for a bit before taking stuff apart. What I found was in most cases people had problems with relays, or the logicon.
I decided what the heck and tried the non-working blower in my other FC that was working. And tada, it didn't work so it was indeed the motor that was a problem.

I pulled the motor back out, and proceeded to dissassemble.
Here's what I found, a bunch of orange rusty looking crap in the bottom.


As I saw that I was thinking to myself, "well this thing is probably worthless" but kept inspecting anyhow.
When I pulled out the bracket I noticed that one of the little metal contacts was lodged in the slider and stuck in rust. So I pulled that apart and found that the little springs inside had rusted and broke.
That was the point where I realized I could fix it and decided to take some pics as well to share.

So I went to the local hardware store and got a couple new springs. Not Lowes or Home Depot, couldn't find anything there.
Here's the springs in comparison to what was left of an original.


The new ones are a little bit stiffer and a whole lot longer, so I had to trim them down a bit. Just enough so that it would still stick out past the end of the slider a little. I probably could have used one of the new ones cut in half.





I actually trimmed a couple more coils off that even.

Putting it back together was a little tricky until I got inventive. I used a couple pieces of tape to hold it all together. This made it pretty simple to get the bracket with the contacts and new springs back around the base of the motor.



Then take out the tape and see how wonderfully the springs push the contacts against the metal drum on the motor.
After I put it all back together and got it back in the car I tested it out. It came right on and worked like a champ.

So the moral of the story is don't be afraid to take stuff apart.
At one point I was considering buying a new blower at God knows what price. Instead, it ended up costing me 78 (2x39) cents plus tax for a couple springs.

I felt so proud of myself that I just had to make this thread.

Flobb

Sorry for the blurry pics, I don't have a steady enough hand for photography I guess.

uRizen

iTrader: (2)

Hehe, sweet. Good job bro. did that rust come out pretty easy and not effect the metal's integrity too much?

Flobb

For the rust I just used a stiff nylon brush and it came off fine.

casio

how hard is the blower motor to get to? mine doesn't really seem to blow unless near or at max. i haven't worried about it much, but a more powerful blower/heater would be nice.

The Spyder

iTrader: (8)

Wont too stiff of springs cause excessive wear and the motor will die soon again?

Flobb

It's simple to take the blower motor out; you just have to undo 3 screws under the passenger side dash.

I'm not sure whether or not a weak motor will be fixed by this. I'm going to try swapping them between my two cars and see if it matters, or if it's caused somewhere else.

The springs are only slightly stiffer because that was what the store had available. They had a softer one on the board where you match them up, but none in the little tray full of springs.

mwpayne

Regardless of how long the repair lasts, I believe you are a perfect example of what an RX7 owner should be. Proud of ya!!

Flobb

Well, I confirmed that a weak blower in my other car is not a result of the same. I switched the two and it's still weak.

And it looks like my school web account finally expired so my pics aren't working.