2002 Edie Bauer Explore blower is posessed!!

[Hercule]

Ok... here's my problem. I have a 2002 Eddie Bauer Eplorer 4.6. It has automatic climate control. Couple weeks back, the blower quit on me... nothing... "nada". Btw, back blower and heat works fine. Now I'm not the sharpest pencil in the box but taking the blower off was simple enough. So I took the blower out, hooked it up to the battery and off it goes, running like a scared rabbit. I figured it wasn't the resistor (since I had no blower at all) and considered swapping out the relay to see if that was the problem. So I take the blower, reconnect it and lay it on the passenger floor. I turned the control on high and what the hell (!) off it goes... Running like that rabbit again! So I think to myself that I'm some kind of mechanical genius (even though the only thing I did was hook the blower up to the battery), reassembled everything and all is well. For about a week. Then again, no blower, zilch. So I take the blower back off, hook it back up to the battery to make sure it didn't die on me and voila (!) off it goes. So I reconnect it, turn the fan on high and everything is fine. I'm an absolute genius.
Now I live in the Midwest and things are about to go downhill real soon in terms of the weather. Don't really want to keep taking the blower off and hooking it up to the battery. Without getting into voltage meters, etc. anybody have an idea what the heart of the issue might be? I appreciate any assistance whatsoever.