Vents don't blow air out with fan running

[tacoman]

haha all good was wondering if i did something wrong lol. Hope somebody can point me in the right direction

[tacoman]

bump! Anybody able to help me out here? Its coooold in mn and i needs more warmth in the bonne.

[gmman]

i do not have the manual climate control on my cars but my thoughts:

first of all, the problem seems to be related to loss of vacuum or restricted vacuum at the control head area but you can consider any of the following as a trouble shooting measure.

are cowl fresh air vents clogged? try visual inspection and also select recirculate on your manual controls if they have this feature. on recirculate air is drawn from inside the car as opposed to vents. it may also be labeled max air.

some members have cleaned their evaporator coils in attempt to improve air flow. there is a procedure for this process in this forum.

if this is not productive, it seems that you still do not have vacuum getting to the vent motors. i was able to find a control head at junk yard for $20. change control head to eliminate one more possibility.

you can purchase a device (vacuum meter) for determining strength of vacuum at engine and at climate control head at most auto parts stores. at engine should be about negative 14 psi at engine and about same at control head.

remove you new blower motor and jump 12 volts direct while holding in place. just to check that it is producing strong air flow. is it oem or asian after market. i have heard cases of low air flow from some after market items.

[imidazol97]

haha all good was wondering if i did something wrong lol. Hope somebody can point me in the right direction

Do you mean that NO air is coming out anywhere with the blower running? No air at the defrosters? No air at the floor?

The sign of the vacuum connector on the programer box failing is that the vacuum can't close the defroster off to make air come out at the dash vents. So the air conditioning doesn't work like usual.

With loss of vacuum due to the tubing damaged or the reservoir under the front fender in front of the wheel is cracked, you should get defrost--no vacuum to pull the defrost door closed to block that path, and no vacuum to pull open the floor vent door. So it all comes out the defroster for safety.

[tacoman]

ok heres all the info lol the motor was going out, when it worked it blew out the vents just fine. I replaced the blower motor and it blows like nobodys biz, you can here it just fine. However the air flow is trapped for lack of words. It does come out of the defroster but not very much at all, as if the duct is closed. Now maybe im starting to think, how much vaccum is really needed to operate the sytem. I took the back, vacuum line terminal off the rear of the manual selector and the violet line seems to have plenty of suction. Its the only one that does have vaccuum, is that the way it should be? Then the manual selector changes the vacuum to the dif, defrost, floor,vent etc? I can put the line on y finger and itll stick pretty *dang* good so i dont know if that would be it. Hmm its just weird cuz thee only thing i touched was the blower motor. Its a 98 se and it dont take nothing to change that beast. Ive checked over everything visually a thousand times lol adhd and need of heat in the car drives a person nuts lol

[gmman]

i second imadazol97's comment (when vac is lost, system is designed to allow vent doors to default position-strong air to defroster for safety reasons). so you may not be chasing a vac problem.

usually when i change something (the blower motor in your case) and some other symptoms occur, i sometimes find the problem had to do with what i changed. might be worth trying another motor if you don't find anything obviously wrong with the new one. perhaps a used one from the junk yard.

[tacoman]

i second imadazol97's comment (when vac is lost, system is designed to allow vent doors to default position-strong air to defroster for safety reasons). so you may not be chasing a vac problem.

usually when i change something (the blower motor in your case) and some other symptoms occur, i sometimes find the problem had to do with what i changed. might be worth trying another motor if you don't find anything obviously wrong with the new one. perhaps a used one from the junk yard.

yeah thats whats gettin me. I mean a person would think if the blower motor is new and sounds like its working fine, then it should be. Have any of yall had that prob? Buy a brand new motor, it sounds like its doing its job just fine but dont seem to blow as strong? Ill have to double check if its a gm part or china part lol. Wonder if the blower motors would maybe work backwards if the polarity somehow got mixed up somehow from the factory? It kinda seems like it could be blowing the wrong way? Ha i know theres only one eay to plug the connector in but it does make me wonder. Reason for alot of though over actually spending alot of time checking through everything is this cold weather. Mn isnt too nice and i dont have any type of shelter to work on this so i try and think of all the ideas i can, run out and check all at one time before a freez my toes off lol. Thanks for all the input so far. Its def helping me start to narrow things down.

[tacoman]

ya know as i sit and think about it all i dont see it being the blower motor. Theres just likke no vent control. Is the problem. When i switch from say defrost to max ac it does change some but hardly any air flow at all. I think i might have to figure out if there is a loss of vaccum or maybe the control switch went bad on me. Wonder if i get me a section of hose if i can kinda bypass n jump the manual controls, just to see if i put the violet vacuum lines on another line if something will happen. I might also end up pulling the blower motor out just to recheck and and everything. Hell my luck i might of had something drop into the hole where the blower motor goes into, causing something to block something somehow. Dont see how but at this point its worth a shot

[imidazol97]

Now that I've read more about what was done...

Is it possible the squirrel cage is slipping on the motor shaft. Motor running, vibrating, but the squirrel cage not actually pushing air. I believe I read once about someone rewiring the motor due to burned connector or something and it was turning backwards.

Quick check for defrost vent would be to put finger behind the 3 vacuum motors on the left side of the HVAC box. The blue tube goes to the defroster/dash vent door. See if it's stuck in the diaphragm forward position. You should be able to use an index finger from behind and flex the diaphragm maybe 1/2-1 inch--it's been a while since I did that, so I'm not clear. The blue tube motor should get vacuum in floor and AC for the vent flow in the dash.

The floor motor has to have vacuum to open. It has two tubes to it and can open midway to give the floor/defogger combination. The logic is that NO Vacuum means defogger/defrost. So the floor is closed, the dash vent is open. And the recirculation motor is off bringing in outside air.

With key ON to give blower motor power, you can check the movements of these manually, to see if air flow does occur. That would be the problem is in your HVAC. If you manually operate some of these with little air flow, then you know it's something to do with motor or AC evap core or heater core.

With engine on for vacuum, you can check tubes at driver side for vacuum in the proper settings. That would help see if your programmer is switching the vacuum correctly.

Yes, the violet line is your vacuum from the intake manifold.

Good luck.

[tacoman]

ok i just came inside from messing with it all and heres what i figured so far. I turnes the car off and played with the vent controls and to be honest as i listened carefully it does seem the vents are changing but air flow was just very very weak if at all. So i decided id mess with the fan. Unplugged the connector and kinda put it back in revers of what it is supposed to go, just kinda wedged it in carefully so the terminals touched. Fan seems to blow a decnt amount harder. Weird huh lol. So now im goin to let the car cool down, then go start it again and see how she heats up. Before it would take prob 20 min just for the defrost to clear just a small portion of the windshield. If this ends up being the problem i think ww should def inform the people of this possible problem. Backwards connections wth huh lol. I hope this is the fix and i can just wire the connector up in reverse so the plug snaps in. Happy holidays to yall and thank you so much for the help. Ill be back on after a bit to let ya know if its all good or no bueno.

[gmman]

just for the record, do you have the electronic climate control (ECC) or the manual system? ECC will have a program control module that automatically controls blower speed and temperature. makes a lot of difference in the approach to trouble shooting.

[tacoman]

manual everything lol no digital at all on my dash. I already seen about the programmer with the vacuum line terminal bypass fix, tried finding mine before realizing i dont have one lol. It all changes at the manual control knob where all the vaccume lines come from, besides the violet which comes from the firewall and under the hood to the uim. Never had to mess with this kind of thing before so never had to dig into it til now. Gonna give it another half hour or so and then gonna try it and see if the car warms up good now. I was cold before from being outside that the warmth i felt might if jjust been in my head. Or it very well could be working fine ow. We'll see, fingers crossed lol. Would make my xmas for sure, well besides watching my kids and fam open gifts just now

[tacoman]

the verdict is in, drum roll please!!! Lol it turns out the blower motor was moving in the wrong direction. I just got back in again and the car warmed up in 5 min no problem. All seems to work fine now. So guess the blower motor is def the problem. So now question now is, do i try to return it to rockauto and wait even longer for all that shipping etc for the car to have heat? Or do i just say screw it and rewire the plug so that itll work and be plugged in. Im thinkin the second choice lol but i also think about the motor going out again down the road. Risk taker i am,ill just rewire and have heat lol. If down the road i have to re replace it again oh well as long as we have heat now. Cost wise the way id think of it is, alot of people can spend double the cost of a new blower motor at a bar in one night. I dont do bars so it would be my "fun thing" since i like messing with my cars lol.

[gmman]

congrats! i would also opt for heat NOW!

[tacoman]

thanks im VERY happy. Heat stays lol wont touch that headache again unless it gives me problems lol