Heater blower fan broken - VN

[Tekit]

I had my aircon completely redone in Feb and it has been very cold. Now the damn Heater Blower fan is crap. It started ticking , then its stopped and if you gave the unit a light bump it would work again , now the only way to get it going is to spin it by hand and it will reluctantly go very slowly.

So I went to the local wreckers to get a fan out of another car , and holly crap batman what a job, the fan is mounted in the Aircon/heater assm and you basically have to take the dash to pieces then pull the unit out to get to the fan.

My question is does anyone know a better way, I was thinking of just cutting one out of a wrecker , then cut mine off the main unit half way between , replace the fan and remount it an joint it back together like a PVC pile fitting.

What do people think. I don't want to disconnect the unit , drop gas etc as I just had it done.
:bang: :bang: :bang:

Tekit

 

[rattattack1313]

bugger!!

yea bloke.. :king: Garth & I just pulled 1 out of me sons VN shell...total bugger of a job........ and there is no easy way, I 'm afraid...

 

[Tekit]

Did it

Well that was fun , I had the Aircon guy come out for a look since i only just spent $1795 on the aircon at Xmas . He had a look and stated the gas had to be dropped and the whole dash pulled apart (Approx $160 + fan + labour).
Well I was looking for another way I went to the wreckers and pulled apart about 4 VN's to get a good idea of how they went together, supprise all wrecked VN have there aircon still in them .

Well what I did was
Total time 4.5 hrs and cost $15
1. Got a really good fan (second one I pulled out )
2. Now with my car I undid the left air vents
3. Lossened but didnt remove the 2 screw in the engine bay
4. Removed the 2 large screws that support he fan
5. Removed all the carpet and underlay
6. I undid the nut on the fan to remove the motor off it
7. I undid the 2 bottom screws on the back of the fan motor crappy job I used a spanner
8. The hatefull part , I hacked off the bottom support, so the motor could be pulled down.
9. I then yanked the motor out as the top screw is a **** an there is no room for your hand (Ps I did bust my hands up a bit) but you can do this as the screws are mount in rubber.
10. I then removed the top screw.
11. I put the new fan motor in
12. Put the nut of the fan
13. Did up the 2 screws on the fan motor.
14. The problem I had to get the top screw back in , luckly I have small hands I was able to get the screw in the hole and using the spanner , flicked it around for about 2 hrs, whilst lying on my back and I got it done up. (more bruses cuts and now a back ache) but if you don't put it in the fan rattles.
15. Did all the screws back up and I was going to glue the bracket I cut off back on but you don't need it. I did all the screws up and put everything back together and all blowing better than it ever did.

Lesson learnt :- Next time sell the car

 

[Silver]

Oh Tekit, $1795 for air/con. I would have died. Funnily enough my heater fan just died in my VK Calais. I hate to say this but the design of the VK heater system allows fan change-over within 4 minutes. It's just above the front passenger's feet. Two small screws and the damn this is out. $11 for a replacement from the local wreckers.

But the VK doesn't go as hard as those VN's though.

Good luck.
Paul
[email protected]

 

[Maxie195]

Hi Tekit,
Thanks for the details on how to replace heater fan

 

[GeorgeM]

Thanks for the help with VN heater fan as I recently had to do my one. I did it mostly as described but I did a liitle extra to make thing easier.
First thing was to carefully cut the plastic that forms the back of the glove box away to get easier access to the fan nut. I did this with a multi tool device but in a way I could put it back in with metal strip behind and self tapping screws.
Second was to cut through the sound deadening behind the fan which gives way more room to re-install. The cut of piece was put back in place once the fan was back in. The cut was made as close to the center of the car as I could get to which worked out to be inline with the inside edge of the fan backing plate.
Thirdly to make it easier to get the top screw in I drilled a hole in the front steel cover of the fan housing/box through which I was able to get a 120mm long 4mm bolt made from all thread rod and a nut. Then I made a thick aluminium washer with a 4mm thread in it which was CA glued to the fans mounting grommet from behind. This allowed me to do up the top mounting from the front. If I do it again I would add a tube to stop the 4mm screw crushing the front cover but mine is working ok just not done up super tight.

Hopefully that helps and makes sense, I did take some photos if anyone is interested.
I am also in the middle of repairing the electric motor by renewing the brushes and the copper commutator al of which I have managed to source via Aliexpress for not much money. If it works I'll post back the details.

 

[MikeC]

I'd be interested in some photos. My dash and AC unit is out at the moment for an evaporator replacement and I hope I never have to remove the fan again- but I would appreciate some photos just in case.

Have you determined what caused your original fan to fail?