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Weirdness - Blower problems?

Claus

Active Member
Joined
January 21, 2004
Messages
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City, State
Ames, Iowa
Year, Model & Trim Level
2003 V8 Eddi Bauer AWD
Weak glowing air bag warning light, ABS light, about to stall engine, and blower not engaging until the speed is turned up all the way. These are the weirdnesses that I encountered over the last month on my 2003 V8 EB.

I traced it down to the blower motor speed selection. When the vehicle has been standing in the cold the blower will not blow instead a sound can be heard. It's like a pneumatic switch tries to do something but doesn't get it done. Is there by any chance any pneumatic stuff with the heating vents? Anyway, while this happens the air bag light glows weakly. When I turn the heater off or turn the fan to max then the airbag light is off. Once the blower was on max speed it works on any speed. Also the blower works fine if the Explorer has been in the garage or is still warm from a recent trip.

Could my problem be a bad blower motor having a short or near short and draning all the electrical power from the other systems? I read about the blower resistor but I doubt that's the problem since the blower works fine under certain conditions.

What do you think. Is it the blower motor and should I replace it? Or is it a shot in the dark and the blower replacement may just be a waste of money?
 



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Cold as in freezing? Possible water got into the blower and is freezing up? Blower working only on Hi is a sign of a blown resistor, but you say it will work on other settings when temp is warm......
 






TPLYNCH said:
Cold as in freezing? Possible water got into the blower and is freezing up?
Yes, cold as in freezing. But if the blower freezes stuck then I'd think it wouldn't work on HI either. Am I wrong with that assumtion?
 






on hi there may be enough power in the fan to push thru any blockage.
 






I have had this same problem a couple of times now. First time I was pretty concerned when I saw the light dimly glowing, but when the fan kicked on, the light went out as was your case.

It sounds like there is a pneumatic leak on the passenger side of the dash while the engine is getting up to temperature. I wouldn't think that it is the blower motor going bad--the blower won't kick on until the engine is warmed up, so as to not be blowing cold air at you (this is a function of the ETC). The reason it works on HI, is that when you manually override the fan setting, it is going to go to HI since that is where it will automatically start when it is very cold out.

If you still have warranty left, see what the dealer says. I am now over 55,000 miles, so warranty was up last summer.
 






Warranty is long gone on that one. So it's something I'll need to look into myself. So far I haven't had time to do so.

How do you inspect the pnymatic system of the heating/cooling system? Any tips and hints would be appreciated.

I'm still concerned with this problem as it seems to mess with the electronics of the airbag. And who knows what else it's messing with.

BTW, what does ETC stand for?
 






ETC stands for Electronic Temperature Control. I don't exactly understand what you mean by pneumatic system. Looking at your concerns, I would expect a weird electrical wiring problem, or more so a charging system problem. What is the battery voltage when the concern occurs??
 






When I was driving the Explorer I remembered that blichy's statement isn't totally correct. The blower motor will kick in right away even in "auto" mode. It'll just spin very slowly. With the problem that I encountered I could hear the noise change a little bit as I turn up the speed of the fan but the fan doesn't operate correctly until it reaches high speed. After that I can reduce the speed to minimal.

So either the blower is indeed stuck and can't move air until it reaches full power or the shutter that directs the air into the passenger compartment is stuck and won't open until the blower is in full power.

I can easely compare the correct and incorrect workings since the problem isn't permanent. It might have to do with the outside temperature when it stucks, however I'm not totally sure about that since I'm not certain if I can pin it to the temperature.

What is the battery voltage when the concern occurs??
I'll have to pay attention to the battery guage on the dash next time that happens.
 






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