[s-cars] Blower motor blown

[Stott Hare]

Disclaimer: the following is from memory, but should be fairly accurate.  If
you must have the step by step from the Book of Robert, I can
copy/fax/scan/email the pertinent pages.  There are two schools of thought
on how to affect this repair.  They have roughly the same number of steps,
but one way takes most of the day, and lots of alcohol, whereas the other
takes around an hour and some willingness to accept shortcuts.  I've done it
both ways on various 5000/200/s-cars, mostly dependant on time, temperature
and disposition.


The long way:
1) Pull your lower dash, glove box and other foot well trim so you can
access the heater box buried behind the radio etc.
2) Disconnect the duct work junctions connection to the air box.
3) Disconnect the wiring to the servo motors mounted to the air box.  Some
people remove the whole servo motor/bracket assembly, which assures they
won't snag on something/break when the air box is removed
4) Place hood into service mode/wide open position.
5) Remove wiper arms
6) Remove gasket and plastic plenum drip tray (you might consider a new
cabin filter as you will be about one step away from the while doing the
blower motor).  You might have to remove the hard trim piece that is bolted
just below the windshield as well.
7) Unplug and remove the wiper motor/transmission.
8) Unplug the temp flap regulator motor pigtail and the blow motor (driver's
side of air box).
9) Drain coolant, disconnect coolant hose from the heater core in plenum.
Place towels in the driver's foot well/center hump to catch all the coolant
that you will end up dumping into the cabin.  Consider replacing the 3
plastic pieces between the motor and the heater core that always fail while
you have the coolant drained (they're like $30 all total).
10) Undo/remove the band strap holding the air box in place.
11) Retract (into the air box) the duct connecting the evap box on passenger
side from the air box.
12) Bitch/moan, lever/groan, pry/cry and do whatever else required to break
the sealant between the air box and the cabin firewall.  Once it is unstuck,
carefully remove it, checking that there are no pieces still connected
inside the cabin or obstruction that might get caught/break while removing
the air box
13) Take a break, have one bourbon, one scotch, and one beer.
14) Once your air box is out, remove the 3 screws holding the ductwork to
the left side of the air box revealing the blower motor.
15) Remove the circlip from the right side of the air box and extract the
blower motor.
16) Question why you didn't purchase a heater core to install while you were
here, because sure as Murphy, it will fail next week.
17) Installation is reverse of removal.  Don't forget to reseal the air box
to the firewall so you don't flood the cabin every time it rains.


The short way:
1) Go to the kitchen, grab a beer, a steak knife (or a dremel will suffice),
and some duct or butyl tape.
2) Open hood, remove wipers and plenum drip trap.
3) Examine and familiarize yourself with the air box construction.  Looking
down on it, the blower motor electrical plug is on your right, as is the
circlip securing the motor in place.  The air box two split halves, held
together tongue in groove style with about 15(?) metal clips around the
circumference (you will probably see 3 or so).  The air box is connected to
the evaporator by a circular/retractable duct on the left side.  The duct
will retract in just enough to clear, and the housing it retracts into is
fastened to the air box with 3 small phillips, 1 which is
shadowed/unreachable.  Inside the duct is the circular wheel of the blower
motor, with the actual motor off to the right.  You can hold up your new
motor if you need to visualize where things are inside.
4) So now that you have an idea where the key parts are... Time to get
hacking.
.
.
.
5) Remove the two accessible phillips screws from the right side.
Lever/pull/curse until you've broken the third mounting point off of the air
box and you have the ducting housing out of the car.  Set aside for now.
6) You should see more of the air box now, possibly feel the blower motor,
but my recollection is you can't actually extract it for the air box... So
close but so far.
7) Knowing that the air box is two halves, it's time to break out the steak
knife. You want to cut the left (passenger side) of the air box open about
80 degrees or so.  You should have a nice horizontal guide across the top
area where the band clamp is secured, you want to cut from left to center,
slightly forward of that seem, starting to open the air box from the duct
entrance area to the center seam.
8) Make a second parallel cut more forward and as close/low to the sheet
metal between the air box and engine bay as possible, again cutting from the
duct opening in to the center seam.
9) Remove any clips securing the two air box halves between your cuts.
10) Grasp your cut section and remove.  You may have to snap any small
connecting areas you hadn't cut completely through. You now have your blower
motor access hole.
11) Unplug the blower and remove the circlip securing it in place.
12) Extract/replace the blower motor, the end with the power connector is
keyed to fit into the air box one way.
13) Replace the circlip, and plug the blower back in.
14) Replace your cut/removable air box section.  Mate up the tongue and
groove, replace the metal clips, and seal your cuts with duct tape/butyl
tape/something else suitable.
15) Reinstall the duct housing, re-secure with the two remaining phillips.
Reconnect duct to evaporator
16) Replace drip trap and wipers.
17) Grab a drink, as you should be done at this point.


Hope this helps!
-Stott

-----Original Message-----
From: s-car-list-bounces at audifans.com
[mailto:s-car-list-bounces at audifans.com] On Behalf Of ron kirkham
Sent: Monday, March 15, 2010 2:04 PM
To: s-car-list
Subject: [s-cars] Blower motor blown

So I spent some time on my S4 climate control issues this weekend.  VAG-COM
confirms that my blower motor is shot, and supprisingly all of my flap
motors are functional.  I'll be ordering a new fan in the next few days.
I've looked around some, and can't seem to find a write-up about this little
project.  I swear i've seen one, but can't locate it.  Does anyone have a
description they can throw my way as my Bentley is non-funk at the moment?
The illustration in KATE makes this look like a fun one, and a BTDT would be
most helpful.

Ron
'93 S4 with 243k and a blown blower
'95.5 S6A blows just fine
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