replacing blower motor help

[wader]

Hey all

few days ago in my 2002 explorer it was -50 Celsius had the heater running on 4 and the blower started squealing making few other sounds as well,was told it was the blower motor so got a replacement ordered at 140$ Yesterday took the old one out put the new one in. Now heres my issue,the new one sounded weird after i put it in kind of whining and loud way worse then the old one.

So i thought maybe because it was new it will work itself out.well went for a test drive made it about 4 blocks and heard boom bang and plastic shards flying in the vents, went back home took it all out again to find that the entire fan blades had all broken off and got blown into a million pieces in the center console vents.

My issue isn't the plastic shards i got most of it out with wire and sticky tack. My issue is i returned the unit they actually covered it on warranty and still waiting for it to be delivered. But i must know wth went wrong, i mean it only goes in one way and its not like you can see if it's rubbing once you put it up into its housing.

how can i prevent this from happening again? once i get my replacement and put that in? i highly doubt they will warranty it a second time around.

thanks.

 

[BigRondo]

Welcome aboard!!

Changing the blower motor is quite straight forward. I have sent a PM with the procedure from the Shop Manual.

This may sound like a stupid question, but is it possible that at -50 degrees that the plastic couldn't handle it?

Then again, you may have just gotten a faulty blower.

Good luck getting it sorted.

Please keep us posted as feedback helps others reading this post looking for a fix to the same or similar issue!

 

[wader]

will just wait and try again will follow up with the outcome.

 

[Number4]

Was it moving air while it made the noise?
Almost sounds like it was stuck on something and the motor finally overcame the object by destroying the squirrel cage.
I'd look for foreign object.

 

[Number4]

Quick note: If you find something with a maple leaf symbol or that says Canada, that's not what I meant by foreign object.

 

[BigRondo]

Quick note: If the find something with a maple leaf symbol or that says Canada, that's not what I meant by foreign object.

:biggthump

 

[Fred Garvin]

Sounds to me like the replacement motor was not centered properly; or the cage slid off the spindle.