OOOOya

....In the wife's 99 A6 Avant.

I'll 2nd the recommendation to NOT bother removing the fan.
Instead, I drilled a hole slightly larger than your typical WD-40 straw through the fan about 1/4" away from the shaft to get at the other end of the motor/bearing. Of course, before the idea for the hole, I did try removing it, which upon install/test required the minor position adjustments you mention in the article.

A few seconds blasting away dust/crud/debris and some lube at the easy end & that little bird was no more. She was pretty much a regular at fan speed 4 or less and occasionally started singing at 5.
Most importantly, the wife is happy again.
-TJ

MN A6 Avant

I need to do this on me '03

acapella8

I have the same bird at only 3 bars. Very annoying. Can you post a small write-up or pics? Or share original post from Chris perhaps? Thanks!

SloopJohnB@mac.com

There's a great writeup on the other one. STFA

rs4-380

https://www.audiworld.com/tech/elec132.shtml

Sinjin

OOOOya, did you just drill the hole while it was mounted on the car? Just for future ref, when my bird comes to see me. I archived the ref article.

OOOOya

I drilled the hole on the opposite side of the blower fan from what's shown here, near the axle:


I did disassemble it as far as shown. If you want to kill the bird, this is a must. I used a dental tool (sister is a hygenist, wife used to be an assistant) to release the wiring from the connector.

Compressed air took care of the debris.