Over the past 2 weeks, my blower seemed to have gotten a bit weaker, and

then it began moaning as I came to a stop. It seemed to be more related

to decelerating than lower voltage, but only a full stop, even a gentle

one, would make it moan!

Tonight I pulled the motor. (I found the knee bolster easier to deal with

than the glove compartment.)

There seemed to be excessive friction, as expected. I settled on Mobil 1

5-30 (over 10-30). There is a screw in the mounting plate. This screw

secures the motor to the mounting plate. But in order to slide the motor

from the plate, you must first remove the electrical contacts into which

the 2 wires plugged from the side. Just unhook the plastic latches and

slide the small assembly (with "+" marked for one terminal) out, much like

the way you un-did the wiring harness connector from it. Then you can

slide the motor from the plate.

This will fully expose the end of the shaft at one bearing. Mine readily

accepted drops of Mobil 1 from the end of a pocket screwdriver. I was

also able to blow a little crud from the area of the brushes/commutator.

This did not free up the shaft much, though, so I had to get some oil to

the other bearing. This was the tricky part.

The squirrel cage fan seems fused to the shaft, and its vanes prevent even

a direct view of where the shaft enters the other motor bearing. However,

by sighting along the outside of the motor housing inside the cage, with a

long thin pocket screwdriver it is possible to deliver a drop (at a time)

to the inside of the end of the motor housing, from where it will reach the

shaft thanks to gravity. I delivered 5-6 drops (maybe most of it reached

the shaft?) this way; I also tried to deliver a few to the shaft outside

(near) the motor inside the cage, and wiped off what I could.

The motor spun (by hand) noticeably more easily at this point. I recall

that, when brand new (prior to installation), it was far from frictionless,

so I consider it new-like now.

As long-time readers may remember, my car's had a long-standing problem

with rainwater infiltration into the HVAC system, which sometimes winds up

in the passenger footwell area, though never here in semi-arid Colorado

(which also happens to be where my garage is). Well, it happened again

last month, the first time since converting from the maldesigned original

kit (which acted as a funnel) to the current kit. Anyway, the slide-on

electrical motor contacts, the 'internal' part I had to remove to slide the

motor from its mounting plate, had obviously gotten wet; one much more than

the other. So while one was still mostly shiny, the other was mostly dark.

I took some very fine sandpaper to these normally-"hidden" connectors, and

made them shiny inside (females) and out.

So now my motor has more power to work with and less friction to work

against. A lower speed setting results in the same airflow as in the

recent past. IOW, the fan's operation is renewed.

OTOH, moving the lever past about 70% travel results in no additional

airflow when parked (I haven't driven the car since the renovation), a

consequence of the more restrictive "hybrid" (activated charcoal) cabin

air filter, which is already an excessive burden on this fan motor, thanks

to Volvo's having discontinued the excellent, very effective

"electrostatically charged" filter material as used in the original 850

cabin air filters. This detrimental filter change helped mask the problems

with the blower motor itself...

BTW, WD-40 is primarily kerosene (and perfume); it is not, by most folks,

considered [much of] a lubricant. My preferred use for WD-40?: as a

volume control (potentiometer) cleaner! (It does this as well as sprays

specially made for the purpose.) It's a much better solvent than

lubricant.

Of course, if I'd have been able to actually disassemble the blower motor,

the correct thing to do would have been to first use a solvent to clean the

shaft/bearings, then clean off the solvent, and then apply a lubricant

(maybe then I'd have chosen the 10-30)...

The blower motor is made by Bosch; having seen how it mounts, I think it

unlikely a generic, easily (and correctly/inexpensively) mountable

replacement can be readily found, unless perhaps this particular Bosch

motor is used in a lot of applications.

Roll on,

- Dave; '95 854T, 107K mi