AC experiences- if it helps anyone else

with Fred's help, I found one of my car's AC problems.

The issue was low volume.... far left vent I could feel, the rest of them were very low airflow and it was hard on a passenger to get cooled off.

I pulled the lower dash cover off the bottom and, with the car running, i could feel cold air. The prior owner/ or "mechanic" had been in the evaporator box for something... they missed completely when putting the screws back in... there were two that were missed and one missing all together. That left a 1/4 or bigger gap around the bottom of the evap case.... I could push up on it and close up that gap and the vents would blow much harder.... So that fixed that.

Now my second issue... I decided while I was there, to pull the fan to make sure no debris etc... found a little debris but not enough to hurt anything but i did manage to crack the fan squirell cage due to the wiggling it past wires etc to get it in there.... I tried to super glue the one tiny spot back and it didnt work. Once back togteher, it sounded like a bomb went off when I turned it on... it came apart with a vengence. Got all the parts and pieces out and we all know the aftermarket blower motors with the wheel are shorter... had to do what i had to do for now, and although it fits and blows.... the volume is back down due to the 3/8 inch shorter fan..... its a huge difference.

so if you have to replace a blower motor, find a good used one thats the exact size. dont get a new aftermarket one that will cut your volume down.

Now i gotta get one from fred and do the replacement all over again.

good tip.. that sucks to have to do a job over because of $hit aftermarket parts

I wound up finding a NOS squirrel cage, new, never installed, in the box on ebay.  bought it and replaced the old one. The difference in the size of the fan wheels is astonishing and no wonder the AC barely blows any volume with that pathetic thing.

that's ridiculous - just looking at the difference you would think it was mis-labeled. Seems that's common with a lot of after market parts.

For example, my HHR had a broken inner door handle (chrome plated cheap plastic) so got one that said it was a direct fit off amz - it wasn't even close. different size, matte instead of glossy finish and although the hinge looked the same it wouldn't even fit into the door panel opening. i ended up pulling a bunch of spares at the yard from wrecks.

Serendipity96 wrote:

that's ridiculous - just looking at the difference you would think it was mis-labeled.  Seems that's common with a lot of after market parts.

For example, my HHR had a broken inner door handle (chrome plated cheap plastic) so got one that said it was a direct fit off amz - it wasn't even close. different size, matte instead of glossy finish and although the hinge looked the same it wouldn't even fit into the door panel opening. i ended up pulling a bunch of spares at the yard from wrecks.

What’s bad is it’s not mislabeled. That’s what they intend to be the direct replacement. It technically works. Just not very well.

Is it possible to move the impeller from the OEM and put it on the new blower, or the other way around by moving the motor?

They are so different that you can not move them from one motor to the other. I took both apart, and tried...no dice.