94 e320 a/c issue please help
 

I had posted this issue some time ago, thought i had corrected the issue, but apparently only made a very very slight improvement. Issue is low air flow with the climate control system. I now need to use a/c again and any suggestions would be great. Air flow does change with low, auto, and high settings, but not even close in comparison to a 95 e320 climate control system i tried out. Don't know if related to the issue, but i think the air flow is making more noise in the car that it should be making. Pulled the passenger airbag (to test the vacuum pods of the climate control system) and tested each port on the 7-port manifold with a mityvac. All hold vacuum well and with car idling, the supply line from the engine to this manifold has about 16 HG of vacuum. Later, i unplugged the supply line to this manifold, turned on a/c and barely noticeable air was coming out of the system. I read some other posts where if vacuum was issue air goes to defroster. Not the case here as with all push button settings there is weak air flow. I believe blower motor is the incorrect one installed by the PO, unless low or no freon in the system would cause weak air flow. It may be that the blower motor currently installed in my car is for older a/c w124 systems which did not have cabin filters like my car has and which I changed about 1 year ago. I would think freon level would not be tied to air flow amount, but i may be wrong. A/c setting air stays warm causing me to look at freon level being involved. The action from my last post for this issue that made a slight improvement, was removing the squirrel cages off the blower motor, flipping them around, and re-installing them onto blower motor again. Thanx for taking the time to read this and sorry for the long post.

Run a jumper wire from the blu wire at blower to ground w/key On and see if the blower has High speed......

thank you Arthur, hopefully I can get around to trying this tomorrow. I was worried I was going to need to invest a few hours to get to the blower motor again. 1st attempt at a fix was picking up the motor with squirrel cages and flipping them together as one. Seemed to help a little. 2nd attempt was keeping the motor in the same direction, but flipping the squirrel cages around again seemed to help a little more with the flow. However, this seems like the best idea/suggestion yet :)

in the case that the blower motor needed to be changed, does anyone know the difference physically (or part numbers) between blower motors for cars with the dust filter versus for cars without the dust filter? a couple of internet searches got me Bosch part number 0 130 111 012, but this is coming up for cars without the dust filter

again thanx Arthur, just that now the search begins for a blower motor for car with dust filter without cages (as this will save me over $200) ... i have found a new Bosch motor only for cars without dust filter for about $80, but I am worried it is too weak for my car that has dust filter ... or that there lies some other part difference

Well, I would not do anything until I jumpered the Blu wire to see if your speed problem is in fact the blower..it could well be the Regulator or input trigger signal to the reg.
That is why I mention the Test.

ahhh alright ... going outside right now to have a look

Same motor for both- no issue about being "too weak". However, the spindle may have a different diameter between each- I don't know.

The main difference is the dimensions of the cages- the "with filter" cages are longer and have larger diameter.

Somewhere, either here or 500ecstasy dot com, a member named gsxr posted side by side pics of both to document the difference.

thank you for clearing that up as i was always curious causing me to babble on about it in this thread .... i do have progress though thanx to Arthur ... put negative to the blue wire on the blower and sure enough high speed came on and scared the crap out of me .... b4 that let it run in high and low setting then this feels 100 times faster .... now i believe i have to narrow it down between blower motor regulator and push button unit with i believe testing voltage behind brake booster

<<with i believe testing voltage behind brake booster
>>


Correct. You want to be looking at the trigger variable V. at YL.

If YES, then suspect is reg,,,, if No , then suspect is Control Panel.

ok tested voltage behind brake booster with key turned to on and defroster setting .... red to black got 12.18 i think and yellow to black changes from 4.5 volts to 10 volts depending on high low setting .... i had found a previous post where this should be anywhere between 2 and 8 volts so i don't know if this is a little high or if it is ok

Ok

Now do that same test right at the yellow wire at the regulator...if still YES , then you have a bad regulator ..if NO , then you have a bad connection between the Plug at firewall and the regulator...........

alrighty, did same test at regulator and got same results .... so i'm going to order regulator online as dealer quoted me $420 and i found one for half that .... i think the failure has to do with missing or dried up thermal paste on the regulator (like a heatsink on a cpu needs thermal paste) in combination or due to dirty dust filters that put a strain on the regulator

Before changing the reg, I would AMP the blower or let it run for a few min w/jumper and see if it gets hot...it could still be a high Amp draw motor , which would effect the Reg output. In that case , the bearing or brushes are suspect..it should turn freely by hand spin and you can see the brushes for wear.

will do ... but will wait for a few days when it will be nice again ... as i need to cover the car from the rain thats on its way to protect the blower motor etc .... the motor itself does turn very easily and freely .... has been replaced by previous owner because it says 2003 on it and it seems to be Bosch part number 0 130 111 034

Arthur don't kill me ... but it all my excitement of the new blower regulator arriving, i didn't test the blower motor b4 installation of new part to see if its a high amp draw motor and now i have a new problem .... fan way too loud and output into the cabin is insanely high with new blower regulator .... can hear fan from the outside of the car and inside u can hear it vibrating from the speed .... my more mechanically inclined friend looked at the brushes and said they were fine .... if the new Kaehler part number 124-821-2151KAE blower motor regulator is not the issue, i believe i should put the squirrel cages back to the way i found them last year when i last took fan assembly apart or do the test and see if fan gets hot

Try the cages back as before...if they are on wrong , then the blower has no drag frpm the airfoil cup of the blades, so no work for the fan motor.

If you watch the rev direction of the motor and then look at the blades , you will see how the blades have to be orientated to capture the air with the cup of the blades. The cup has to cut into the air.

After your comments and after viewing a video i took with the old/bad motor regulator, the squirrel cages are backwards .... i posted it on youtube if anyone wants to see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dop9y2Y_IXw .... i will need to open everything up again tomorrow and flip them

i believe removing the motor and flipping it would have the same effect right?