Faulty Fan - not the resistor

[Beanster]

Hi,
I've replaced the fan speed resistor with the help of Kopper69's excellent guide, but the fan continues to blast out at Hi and ignore positions 1-3. I bought one of the new type resistors from Holden (where I paid over $50), the old one was definitely busted. But it hasn't cured the problem. I need to get the aircon re-gassed but I want to fix the fan beforehand. Any suggestions welcome.

[The1]

sounds like it's blown it again, have you checked relays and fuses?

[Beanster]

Yup, it's not blown and all fuses and relays are good....

[hako]

To me, (with a devious mind) it sounds like someone has hotwired the fan switch so it runs on high despite a lower setting being chosen. I'd pull the contraols and check the wiring - there is a how-to which covers installing a new radio and this covers pulling the switches.

[Brett_jjj]

The new one might be faulty.If you have a soldering iron,you can re-join the old resistor where it broke.Just open the cage a bit and solder it back together.But I'd definitely be trying another one in there,just to make sure.If you dont find anything wrong there,I'd check out the fan switch,it could be faulty.Also replace the heater(blower) relay,I think its under the bonnet,near the fuses.These relays can sometimes cause weird stuff to happen when they are faulty.

[nugatory]

I've done all this before.. e.g. Soldered up the dodgy cage version resistor and it turned out the blower fan itself has blown up.

The best way to tell if it's the fan or the resistor is to simply get a testing light or multimeter onto the blower fan plug itself. This will also test the fuses and the relays.

The way the resistor works is there's 3 wires inside the cage. But your car has 4 speeds on the fan right?

So the 3 wires in the cage are the lower speeds, while speed 4 is a straight through connection.

To my understanding, even a resistor cage with 3 blown resistors should ALWAYS work on setting 4.

To fix your problem:

Get a testing light out, unplug the blower fan, put the testing light onto the plug and test ALL speeds through the plug itself.

If your plug isn't getting power at 1 or 3 then it's your wiring or resistor.

If the plug is getting power at all speeds then it might not still be the fan itself. The fan only operates on the amount of power it is given so therefore the wiring inbetween the resistor and the wiring to the fan itself might be burnt out.

This might indicate that the current through the wiring might be enough to light your testing light but not enough to deliver the power it needs to the fan. That's when it's time to get a multimeter out.

When you've got the resistor itself out, using a multi meter - you should be able to test the resistance between each connection on the resistor to see if it's passing through current.

Hope this helps!