My blower motor is squawking.

In reading and looking at pics, I'm guessing the sound is coming from the blower fan wheel hitting the housing. Some posts say the horrific noise is preceded by a whining of humming of the bearings - I did not get that preamble.

Is the rubbing of the fan and failure of the bearing the same problem?
Both requiring replacement of the blower motor?

Other:
- Not too many months back the fan started running at low speed in the OFF position. I see posts that attribute this to having the AC ON. The AC knob is NOT ON.
- The squawking had started to occur also in the last several months in higher fan speeds but it recently started in the low fan speed. This means since the fan is always running on LOW even when "OFF" there was no turning off the noise.
-- I pulled the fuse and found the fan still runs in the OFF position but not in the low/middle/high positions.


If answers go the way I suspect ...

- Current recommendations of blower fan manufacturers?
- Is replacement of the switch and resistor a given?
- I found IPD instructions in a post that show different work on different years and neither are a involved as other "having done it" posts.
-- Maybe I have not been noting the years of the "having done it" cars.
-- Should I be planning on pulling the seats and instrument cluster as well as the center console and glove box?


Thank you.
--
1988 244 DL; B230F; LH-2.2; Manual 5-speed (M47)