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About a month ago the HVAC blower motor in my 2000 Viggen stopped working, and at the same time I lost almost all the remainder of pixels on my Climate Control Unit. I figured that whatever the problem, it was past time for me to get the Climate Control Unit rebuilt. So I sent off the unit to BBA Remanufacturing, who turned around the rebuild in 3 business days for around $170.
I plugged in the Climate Control Unit. It powered up and showed a full display. But no sound or air from the blower motor. More troubleshooting was needed.
My online research showed that the most common problem was faulty blower motor resistor, causing the blower motor to default to full power. Since the blower motor in my car was showing the exact opposite symptom, I realized that a faulty resistor was not the problem. Additional web searches for the cause of a non-functioning fan were not productive. As it turns out, what kept me from finding helping information was that my searches did not use the right key word. I needed to use the word "controller." If I had done so, the saga would have been much shorter.
To continue....I figured it would not hurt to replace a 13 year-old blower motor that had been noisy, so I ordered one from eEuorparts. They came through as they usually do with a good looking replacement. Now came the problem of how to remove the old blower motor.
Haines made the procedure look straightforward.....until I got to the part where the blower motor itself needs to be unmounted. Haines gave no clue where and how I could access the mounting screws/bolts. I looked around the blower motor cavity for several hours and could see nothing that looked like mounting screws/bolts. I asked the SAABNET community, and Ed N came through with the information. Many thanks, Ed!
The blower motor has 2 mounting screws. They have a Torx 15 head. They are very difficult to see and even more difficult to access. The blower motor is mounted on a large rubber bushing that sits inside a metal collar. The metal collar has two flanges. On the edge of each flange at ts midpoint is a semicircular cutout. This is where the mounting screw goes. Removing the mounting screws took a combination of wobble extensions, as well as much time and patience. The blower motor could then be removed. Those of you who rely on Haines manuals to work on your cars should add the above description to the section on blower motor replacement.
Mounting a new blower motor is a lot of fun, if you are a masochist. The motor itself sits inside a large rubber bushing, which is nested within a metal collar. This arrangement does not rigidly anchor the motor. It is able to slide up and down on the rubber bushing. Getting the motor to slide takes considerable effort, but being able to slide the motor is absolutely necessary to correctly position the mounting holes on the metal collar flanges. Repositioning the blower motor so that the screw cutouts in the flange are over the screw holes is another operation that takes a lot of time and patience.
When the motor is properly positioned over the screw holes, re-attach the back screw first, i.e., the screw that is on the far side of the blower motor and is closer to the passenger compartment. If you try to attach the side closer to the engine compartment first, the back flange becomes misaligned from the screw hole and almost impossible to realign with the front side screw installed. Again, time and patience are keys to success, along with a good magnetic pick-up. Figure on dropping the mounting screws several times. If you don't have a magnetic pick-up, you will not succeed.
After I installed and connected the new blower motor, I tested it. No joy. At this point I punted and took the car to my local mechanic. Based on my description of the symptoms and what I had done, he pointed immediately to the controller unit in back of the glove box. This was news to me (See above for my failed research efforts). He tested the ground circuit between the controller unit and the blower motor to confirm his suspicion. Bingo! A few hundred dollars later he had installed the new controller. Now I had to finish the job by reassembling the HVAC components I had removed to get to the blower motor.
After a couple of false starts, I realized that my first job was to replace the semi-cylindrical top cover of the blower motor, connect the circuit, and test the motor before proceeding further. Good thing I did. The squirrel cage rubbed against the edges of the blower motor cover. 30 minutes of sliding the blower motor a couple of millimeters within its rubber bushing finally got it aligned. Time, patience and elbow grease won the day. Testing the alignment of the blower motor cover is ESSENTIAL before proceeding further with reassembly
The rest of the reassembly was straightforward. I hope this long posting helps anyone else who has to troubleshoot a non-working HVAC blower motor.
Thanks to Ed N for his clue on locating the blower motor mounting screws. Thanks to Don Brown and Steve Wynkoop of Precision Import Service in Fairfax, VA for their expertise and patience in working with me.
posted by 68.98.157...
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