Heater blower motor

[Greg S]

H'm! My blower motor would occasionally not turn on, then when it felt a suitable amount of time had gone by, It would start blowing copious amounts of hot air. Low speed was so slow you could hardly tell it was running. Then, just before a long drive with ice, snow and occasionally rain, it stopped blowing altogether. I went to an auto wrecker and spent over an hour sorting through blowers they had on storage racks. Found one that would fit well enough and with minimal mods, got it working but not quite the blast of air the old one put out. The modified one is much quieter. It took almost three days of fiddling to get everything put in order and reassembled. I'm happy again and driving the LR 90 everywhere.

The armature turned but with a lot of resistance. The old motor is NOT designed to be disassembled. The ends are punched into place rather than screwed or bolted but some quick work with a cold chisel and a big pry got it taken apart. I couldn't see any turning resistance inside but the brushes weren't on the armature, they were on the shaft. Couldn't figure that one out. Took the motor apart, brushes looked good, bearings were okay and nothing looked like it was rubbing. Started putting it back together and found the armature was barely under the magnets and was 3/4" shy of the brushes. How? A bit of hammer work got the shaft slid to the proper spot on the armature and everything lined up. Reassembled and put some power to it and it turns like mad. Now I have a spare, but how did the armature get slid down the shaft? It didn't happen during the disassembly and I haven't done anything to prevent it happening again. Note: It took a lot of force to get the armature to slide on the shaft when putting it back in place.