I'm in the process of replacing the blower motor on my '81 242. I've got the thing out (and there was much rejoicing!). There's so much play in the shaft of my old motor that the blades/impellers/whatchamacallits (the white plastic things that push the air) have made significant contact with the inner halves of the ducts, on both sides. It seems like the plastic the ducts are made out of is harder, they're marked up but don't have any real damage, but the blades (this time referring to each little blade) all have a sizeable chunk taken out on the inner side of the impeller. I can see little shreds of white plastic hanging from them, in fact I now have a distinct memory of these shreds coming out of the vents now and then last winter (fan has been noisy for like, 3 years, but finally died in March). so, do I need to replace the impellers?

what are the blades like normally? are they square on the ends? anyone have a picture of a good one so I can see how damaged mine are?

is this common? I'm not especially eager to tear apart a car at the junkyard and find ones that are worse than mine. actually after getting this out I'm not especially eager to tear another one apart at all, but you could've guessed that =P

I was intending to put a picture up, but the batteries in my camera are dead, so I might have one later on today once they're charged.