RJM62
Touchdown! Greaser!
- Joined
- Jun 15, 2007
- Messages
- 13,157
- Location
- Upstate New York
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Geek on the Hill
...flew off my tongue, I confess, while removing and reinstalling the front heater blower in my old minivan. 
The shop wanted $600.00 to fix it (the van cost me $800.00), so being your garden-variety idiot, I decided I would do it myself and save.
And save I did -- unless you want to count having lost two days of serenity and more skin off my knuckles than I care to think about.
But the experience did give me an opportunity to ponder some questions to which I hadn't, until now, devoted much thought, such as:
Why, pray tell, don't automobile engineers consider the fact that someone, at some time, will have to do maintenance on the vehicles they design?
Why did the three hex screws (two now: one disappeared) that hold the fan housing in the plenum chamber have to be placed at precisely the WORST possible positions in terms of actually being able to get a tool on them?
For that matter, why did they use screws at all? A band-type clamp would have worked fine. So would a design in which the fan twisted into the plenum and was secured by a latch. Or even a bail arrangement, like an old-fashioned Mason jar. But NOOOOoooooo. They had to use three screws, and place them behind enough other stuff to make them impossible to get to by any manner a normal mind could devise. 
By the second day, I regretted undertaking the project. But still I pressed onward, still guardedly confident that there had to be SOME way to get the blasted screws out.
And then my friend , who owns an auto parts store, came to the rescue with the world's smallest 8mm box wrench -- one whose handle was bent at a certain angle that allowed me to remove the screws (albeit about 1/32nd of a turn at a time) until they fell and got lost in the rolled-back carpeting.
Still, a feeling of triumph overcame me as I heard them fall; followed by an even greater sense of bafflement as I pondered the question of why they needed screws that were 3/4 inch long to hold together two pieces of .032 sheet metal. Was it just to insure that I would have to move that tiny wrench in its even tinier arc a sufficient number of times to give me carpal tunnel syndrome, all while lying inverted with my head hanging down from the passenger seat, blood rushing to what was still left of my brain?
I took the motor into the house, removed the squirrel cage (which, of course, was seized to the shaft), and inspected the motor. The armature was covered with schmutz, but there seemed no way to open the motor housing short of, perhaps, dynamite. But I was able to cut a strip off a Scotchbrite pad, hold it in place with the handle of a tablespoon, and rotate the shaft enough to clean the armature.
Changing the brushes was out of the question because I couldn't figure out how to open the housing to get to the brushes. I did, however, find what looked like a lubrication port, behind a piece of rubber that I pried out. So I applied a couple of drops of oil in there, and a couple on the bearing on the squirrel cage side, cleaned and re-attached the squirrel cage, and went back to car.
I plugged it in, turned on the heat, and -- it worked!
The re-installation, however, required some additional dis-assembly (don't ask me why -- it just did), and one of the three screws disappeared into a black hole that had formed under the dashboard. Screw it, I said. Or don't screw it, actually. Two screws were enough. The slight hiss of air escaping will be drowned out by the cacophony of other noises the old van makes, and there's still enough air blowing through the vents -- at medium speed -- to part my hair and make any toupee-wearer nervous.
Now I just have to figure out why the rear heater blows ice-cold air. the shop told me that could wind up being an expensive repair. I think I'll save some money and just do it myself...
-Rich
The shop wanted $600.00 to fix it (the van cost me $800.00), so being your garden-variety idiot, I decided I would do it myself and save.
And save I did -- unless you want to count having lost two days of serenity and more skin off my knuckles than I care to think about.But the experience did give me an opportunity to ponder some questions to which I hadn't, until now, devoted much thought, such as:
Why, pray tell, don't automobile engineers consider the fact that someone, at some time, will have to do maintenance on the vehicles they design? Why did the three hex screws (two now: one disappeared) that hold the fan housing in the plenum chamber have to be placed at precisely the WORST possible positions in terms of actually being able to get a tool on them? For that matter, why did they use screws at all? A band-type clamp would have worked fine. So would a design in which the fan twisted into the plenum and was secured by a latch. Or even a bail arrangement, like an old-fashioned Mason jar. But NOOOOoooooo. They had to use three screws, and place them behind enough other stuff to make them impossible to get to by any manner a normal mind could devise. By the second day, I regretted undertaking the project. But still I pressed onward, still guardedly confident that there had to be SOME way to get the blasted screws out.
And then my friend , who owns an auto parts store, came to the rescue with the world's smallest 8mm box wrench -- one whose handle was bent at a certain angle that allowed me to remove the screws (albeit about 1/32nd of a turn at a time) until they fell and got lost in the rolled-back carpeting.
Still, a feeling of triumph overcame me as I heard them fall; followed by an even greater sense of bafflement as I pondered the question of why they needed screws that were 3/4 inch long to hold together two pieces of .032 sheet metal.
Was it just to insure that I would have to move that tiny wrench in its even tinier arc a sufficient number of times to give me carpal tunnel syndrome, all while lying inverted with my head hanging down from the passenger seat, blood rushing to what was still left of my brain?I took the motor into the house, removed the squirrel cage (which, of course, was seized to the shaft), and inspected the motor. The armature was covered with schmutz, but there seemed no way to open the motor housing short of, perhaps, dynamite. But I was able to cut a strip off a Scotchbrite pad, hold it in place with the handle of a tablespoon, and rotate the shaft enough to clean the armature.
Changing the brushes was out of the question because I couldn't figure out how to open the housing to get to the brushes. I did, however, find what looked like a lubrication port, behind a piece of rubber that I pried out. So I applied a couple of drops of oil in there, and a couple on the bearing on the squirrel cage side, cleaned and re-attached the squirrel cage, and went back to car.
I plugged it in, turned on the heat, and -- it worked!
The re-installation, however, required some additional dis-assembly (don't ask me why -- it just did), and one of the three screws disappeared into a black hole that had formed under the dashboard. Screw it, I said. Or don't screw it, actually. Two screws were enough. The slight hiss of air escaping will be drowned out by the cacophony of other noises the old van makes, and there's still enough air blowing through the vents -- at medium speed -- to part my hair and make any toupee-wearer nervous.
Now I just have to figure out why the rear heater blows ice-cold air. the shop told me that could wind up being an expensive repair. I think I'll save some money and just do it myself...
-Rich
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