Just successfully completed my evaporator/heater core project.

Sure enough, I now have a slight blower motor squeak. It was starting before the evaporator/heater core project, but now it is much worse. Begins on certain accelerations, decelerations, or turns. Sometimes goes away. Other times persists.

Most of the posts I have seen about this are resolved by replacing the assembly.


Has anyone taken the thing apart, cleaned it, oiled it, and been successful?


I know, I know, just replace the damn thing . . . I'm just old-school and try not to fill the landfills if I don't have-to.

Thanks guys.

Completed the repair last night--no more squeak.

Thought I had destroyed the motor when I pounded the fan blade off of the armature shaft. In addition to the fan blade coming off, the armature shaft ended up displacing more than an inch from its original position and the motor locked up. Was able to pound the shaft back through the motor, to its original position and, amazingly, the motor still worked.

Oiled-up both end bearings and the thing spun a lot more freely.

Thanks.

When I was doing the evaporator/heater core and the dash was off, the blower motor was just sitting there, as pretty as could be, ready to be pulled-out and repaired.

Now that everything is back together, it looks like a pretty tight squeeze pulling that motor out from behind all of those cables and the knee bolster.

Please tell me that I do not have to pull the dash again to remove the blower motor.

BTW, for various reasons, I had to pull and reinstall the dash three times. The first time took two days. The next time took about two hours. The last time I did it in about an hour. But I sure as hell don't want to have to do that again for a long, long time.

The blower motor can be worked-out of there without pulling the dash, right?

The glove box and knee bolster need to come out, just for addional rood to work in and visibility. The wire clip at 11:00 o'clock slides away from the blower center.

Fairly easy to do and the dash stays in!

Klaus
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Two great Volvos, a 1967 220 and a 1998 V70R

I'm pretty sure it goes like this: remove the sound deafening pad, remove 2 screws from the glovebox door and take it off, remove 4 from the glove box take it off, remove the clip from the fan, remove the screws holding the fan it (i can't remember if its 3 or 4 screws) remove fan.

So no dash!

Taking motor apart is very easy. Pry out the connector adapter and remove the one screw on the end of the housing. The motor should just pull out along with the cage assy. Blow out the motor and oil the bushings. You'll probably find the brushes worn the the brush wires stretched tight. Once this happens they will start to squeek and loose contact with the armature. You can unsolder the connections and slip the wires a bit to improve the contact and get some more life out of the blower.

Definitely take it apart, Maybe oiling/greasing the bearings will be all it needs, but I'd guess you have to replace one (or more) of them.



Considering taking it out and putting it in is about an hour's job, its worth the try to save $150-200 (or the environment if you're not cheap like me!)

This is what i did and the fix has already lasted well over two years.

I took the blower motor out, took out the motor casing and clened the motor very carefully with a brush and compressed air. Also very carefully I cleaned the the electrical colector on the rotor, using contact clener and cotton swabs. After that, using a long sewing needle, I cleared the grooves between the contact plates on the rotor´s collector. Then I got some sewing machine oil and mixed some graphite in it, not too much just enough to make the oil turn dark, almost black. Then using a syringe and along plastic tube (from a WD-40 can, I placed one end of the tube in the syringe and the other close to the bearings and injected maybe a drop of the oil+graphite in each onespinning the rotor for the oil to penetrate, besides turning it upside down several times. Before assembling everything, I found a plastic pan that was approximately 4 inches deep and filled ith with warm water and soap and placed the thing in there with the squirrel cage facing down to clean it completely (squirrel cage in water, motor out, obviously). Left it in there for a few hours, and then rinsed carefully under a tap.Let it dry and put it back. Noise dissapeared since, and I noticed immediately that speed was a bit higher than before.

I advice against using WD-40 or similar, as it will invariably leave some smell, and if it gets to the squirrel cage, it will make the plastic degrade and break.

I have been using Kleen-Flo's TEF-lube 2000 for a while now and I think it would suit this application well. I buy it at NAPA.

The oil is very water-wash-out resistant and suspends teflon particles for long term lubrication.

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1998 V70 AWD->FWD Turbo 200k+