We bought 3 blower motors recently for 2 of our 16vs and a friend's 8v (exactly the same for both). During the installation of the last one we decided to take some pics and do a little write up. Its pretty straight forward but this should take any guess work out of it if you don't have a manual.

Tools: 8mm, 10mm Ratchet with extension. 4mm Allen. (3mm or smaller Allen is recommended for removing a clip, but you could use something else just as easy)

***Edit***
Disconnect the battery before you start. The motor and its contacts are fully exposed when you get the housing off.


1. Remove upper 4 bolts from the middle of the firewall directly behind the engine.



There are two more on the other side, one of them is hidden behind the wiring that comes out of the battery/electronics bay.

2. Remove two plastic screws and plastic sleeves from the plastic debris guard that attaches to the firewall.



3. Remove rubber guards on top of firewall, battery bay and fuse box bay. Remove two sheet metal screws from plastic debris guard. 1 near fuse box and 1 near battery bay.



4. Pull middle section of the firewall back, toward the engine.



5. Pull Plastic debris guard toward engine and lift up and out.





Should look something like this:


6. Remove wiper arm - Pull up plastic cover on arm (be very careful, this is probably very old and brittle - it should probably slide out, but mine did not and I didn't want to try and force it)



Remove 4mm Allen bolt that is now visible



Slide wiper arm out - you might have to pull really hard, that bolt just clamps down on a pin and just because the bolt isn't there doesn't mean the clamp will release right away. Jiggling it a little will help.





7. Remove 4 bolts holding wiper assembly on (highlighted with an arrow or rounded rectangle) - Circles/ovals highlight optional bolts that you can remove if your are having difficulties getting the assembly out (They allow the motor to rotate on the assembly, giving you a few extra degrees of freedom to work with. One of them on this car was hidden behind one of the arms for the wiper mechanism and I am not sure how to move that out of the way. This arm was not in the way on the other two cars that I did.).

Three of the required bolts are located up under the wind shield trim, two of them are on either side of the big housing that connects to the wiper arm, the other is near the motor. The last required bolt is the bolt closest to the fuse box.











8. Remove the metal retainer that holds the wiper mechanism in place on the firewall.



9. You should now be able to remove the entire wiper mechanism. You can just leave it plugged in and place it out of the way, or you can unplug it to remove it from the car totally.

10. The motor is under the plastic cover that is now accessible. Remove all the metal clips to expose the motor.
- Arrows indicate a clip that is not visible in the picture, rounded rectangle indicated a visible one.



11. Unplug two wires from the motor, and remove the big retaining clip. Easiest way to do this is with a small allen wrench through the little hole.
Then just pull the motor and attached fans out.







12. Remove motor and fans.



13. If you bought a motor from Mercedes I think it comes with new fans as well, I am not sure if they will be adjusted properly but you will not have to salvage your old ones as you would if you bought the motor from MercedesShop/Fastlane as we did. So you can skip this next part (go to step 16), but be sure when you put the new one in you spin it by hand to make sure it is not rubbing! I would also test with motor again after you put the casing back on.

14. Taking off the fans can be tricky as they are sort of press fit on the shaft. If you have one person grab each of the fans, pull and rotate in opposite directions, one of the fans will break loose and spin independent of the motor shaft. This fan will eventually pull off after a bit of turning and pulling. Be Careful as the plastic is very old, you don't want to break one of the fans. To get the other fan off, put the open end of the shaft into the vise and work the other fan off the same way.

15. Putting the fans on the new motor is also not very easy. The new shafts are probably a different length (unless you have done this before as it seems the replacement motors have slightly shorter shafts than the original MB parts) so you will want to measure the distance the fan was from the motor housing. You can do that using the corrosion as a measuring point. Or you can just do the guess and check method, where you just put the fans on and tap/knock them together little by little. Its much easier to knock the fans on than off so try not to knock them onto the shaft too far. Note the motor is located in the fan housing, so each fan has to be set in its position independently.



Using the short ratchet wrench extension and a hammer, knock the Fans a little farther in:


16. Set motor in holder and spin fans to make sure there is no rubbing. If there is, remove the fan again and knock the fans in the needed direction.



17. When the fans are adjusted properly the fans spin freely, then plug the wires into the motor and run them through the retaining clip (there is a little feature in it where the wires should run). Engage the retaining clip, this can be a bit difficult, but make sure the wires are not getting pinched in the clip and you can use a screw driver and a hammer to punch the clip in place. To avoid digging the screw driver into either the clip or the new motor, I used the screwdriver as shown in the photo - the handle against the clip.



18. The rest of this is just the reverse of the removal procedure and should be pretty straight forward. You probably want to test the motor before you put too much stuff back on, but unplug the wiper if you do as accidentally turning it on can jam it and burn up the motor or mess with the geometry of the wiper mechanism.

Hope this helps someone (and yes, it was snowing while I was doing this)...
Jim

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1985 190E 2.3-16v Euro
1980 300GD SWB