Thread: Blower Fan Noise

I am no help with the Sport,but we had the same noise on one of the work Rangers the other day and it was a mouse nest of leaves in the fan wheel.
Surprisingly easy to access.

Anyway,good luck with yours.

No such luck for me. The cover over the blower motor is held on by 3 clips, if I could get access to the blower, I could check it.

Getting access is the problem.

Following photos from the internet.

Heater 12.jpg

I'm going to try removing the centre vent and poke the inspection camera down their duct. It looks like I might be able to see into the fan area.

Heater 24.jpg

Well, after removing the dash top (after removing the ends of the dash), one is presented with this. Not very encouraging.

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I removed the nav screen/radio which can be seen in the above photo and this was the access hole made available - it’s quite small.

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Looking into hole, I unclipped the cover off the blower assembly and found the right hand fan had lost part of its periphery. The blades must have been hitting the plastic that had broken off, hence the noise in the above video.

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So, it won’t be an easy or cheap fix. A new blower from LR is around $800. I’ll look for a secondhand BMW unit from evil bay. I’ll have to hack away a fair bit of plastic to get the old blower out and a replacement in.

Hi Ron,
I did mine at start of winter. If you carefully trim away plastic with reciprocating saw the job can be quite neat. There is a lot of material that needs to be removed on early dash structure, so take your time and eventually you will be able to wiggle the fan assembly out.

From memory I sourced fan assembly from Island 4x4 or LR Parts in UK as could not find locally.

I would be tempted to add some appropriate ie. non flammable sound insulation in void above fan plenum when you reassemble. I think fan is slightly more audible post partial removal of dash sub structure. Not sure if it is real or imagined (my wife says it is exactly the same as before).

Charles

Thanks Charles.

I don’t know whether to buy a secondhand fan or new aftermarket. I think new but having done it once, maybe doing it again with a secondhand unit wouldn’t be too bad.

Hi Ron,

My concerns with second hand would be (i) fragility of the plastic blades as mine had no flexibility and cracked manouvering out of casing. Given how much I had to squeeze and wiggle to get new fan in place I needed all the flexibility the blades had (ii) state of motor components as on mine brushes were so worn they had carved a groove into the commutator.

Charles

Zackly!

I may have a new one coming at a good price. Hopefully will know tomorrow.

Karcraft had one. Aftermarket, made by Nissens.

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Now to install it.

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