ATF vs. oil chirpy blower motor
 

Anyone have personal knowledge/ experience on best lubricant for blower motors? My 94 E420 (W124) very occasionally makes a slight chirping over the last few years, then goes away. I'm in deep with evaporator replacement this very moment- sure would be easy to lube the blower motor, but hate to replace it since there is no terrible current problem (later models with dust filter are about $300). I've read posts suggesting ATF, but elsewhere have read that ATF is bad for this as it boils (flashes) off with heat if not in a sealed system. Many have suggested sewing machine oil if sintered bearings are used, as this will actually "soak" into the bushings/ bearings.

So, has anyone had experience with the later blower (with dust filter) to know whether it has sealed bearings, or sintered bushings? What kind of lube? And what about the brushes?

Thanks in advance

I had severe/constant chirping in my 201 two yeas ago. I used ATF and it worked very well. It has, however begun chirping occasionally again... but I consider two years to be a pretty good run!

What I did was to remove the motor/fan, set it on it's side on the bench, then apply the ATF. Let it sit for an hour or two, then set it on its other side, and apply more ATF. The rationalle here being that gravity will draw the ATF through the bearing. When I get around to addressing the current occasional chirp, I think I'll use synthetic ATF to see if that lasts a little longer.

Good luck.

Jeff Pierce

I dripped a little Mobil 1 engine oil on mne when I had it apart. It's worked fine since then. all of three months :rolleyes: I wouldn't use sewing machine oil personally, it's just too lightweight and designed to run at room temperature. ATF should work fine as should any engine oil. All would soak into a sintered bearing.

look for instrument grease, sometimes available in gage repair shops. Got some surplus army instrument grease, it is some kind of clay-silica mix. works wonders I think its called "grease, general purpose and instrument" AeroShell 4