For the past few months the blower on my HVAC has been running intermittently (always decides to not run when its roasting hot out!) and even when it decided to run it sounded like the fan itself was flailing around on its bearings. So before i ordered up a replacement I decided to strip it down and see what was what. The fan itself wasn't moving laterally on the motor shaft at all so that was good. I stripped the motor out and pulled the brushes out to inspect and although worn, there was still plenty left on them. I did notice however that the channel that the brushes slide through was dry and that they took a small bit of effort to push back down to the commutator. It didn't help that the springs behind the brushes are fairly weak as well. Anyway I left the springs alone but cleaned out the channels as best I could and then added a spray of grease. Reassembled and it works first time every time now. As an added bonus setting one on the motor speed now blows as hard as setting 3 did before I cleaned it up, I had thought the system was just rubbish but not the case. I didnt take any picture of the blower removal from the car as its straightforward enough. Just remove the tray below the glovebox, unscrew the 4 retaining screws that hold the foam to the channel from the blower to heater matrix, disconnect plug from blower motor and then rotate the blower motor housing anti-clockwise and it will drop down from the HVAC assembly. The plate that holds the female end of the plug can be clipped out of the housing and there are two spade connectors that can be disconnected then. The motor is held into the black plastic housing by 3 rubber feet so its easily removed. You will then be presented with the motor as below. You can see one of the brushes has been removed. I inspected the commutator for damage and then cleaned out the channel for the brushes and applied a bit of grease to them then. Brush reinserted into the channel Spring sat in place And finally the clip to hold spring in place and keep pressure on the brush. Do the same for the other brush and then reassemble the whole lot and your blower should be blowing much stronger.
