S4Dean

There was a brief writeup in the archives but I wanted to do a new one with pics.

Here are the tools I used:

-Scissors
-Small ratchet with T10 torx bit
-3 in 1 oil

Very simple thing to do.

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Pinch the two sides of the glove box and pull down.

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The brown sensor was unplugged from the blower motor.

2) Unplug brown sensor to motor and remove 3 T10 screws with torx bit/small ratchet. The top screw is a pain. There is one black clip and one white clip holding the motor and associated wires in place after removing the 3 screws. I just cut both clips and used Gorilla tape to hold the wires down when I re-installed.

3) You have to rotate the motor clockwise where the brown sensor socket is at around 9 o'clock and then you can pull it out of the glove box. You might have to wiggle it and pull it a little bit past the top of the glove box, but it will come out.

4) At this point, it's time to oil the bearings in the fan part of the blower motor. Here are a few pics of the motor:

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I tried removing the metal heatsink in the 3rd pic to try and take the motor apart but it's too close to the fan. I didn't want to break the fan so I screwed the heatsink back in w/o removing it. The 3-in-1 oil that I used has an extended spout but it was really hard to get it between the fan blades to try and oil the bearing in there. I pretty much just drenched the inside of the bearings where the fan spins from and let it sit for about 10 minutes. I re-installed the motor the way I took it out. This was a pain and I had to play with it but again I think the best way is to fit motor in with the brown sensor socket at 9 o'clock, wiggle it in, and then rotate the motor counter-clockwise 90 degrees to line it up with the screw holes. I screwed it back in, plugged in the brown sensor, and used heavy-duty tape to tape down the wires connected to the sensor. If you don't do this, the glove box will catch on the wires when you try shutting it. Squeeze the glovebox together and slide it back in. I fired up the car to back sure the motor was working and it does. I haven't had a chance to take it for a drive and see if it squeaks still but I'm hoping I drenched the fan bearing enough to solve the problem. Hope this helps.

LaserAvant

I did the same, only sprayed WD-40 all over the moving parts. Noise free for 2 years.

bskibbe

In addition, the way to do both bearings.
If you look between the fan and the motor housing, you will see (3) push tabs that hold the motor into the main housing, spaced evenly around the housing. Press the tabs in, and you can slide the motor out of its housing, disconnect the power leads, and have access to the rear (main) motor bearing. I did this and was able to hit both bearings. (I chose to use 3 in 1 oil as well) Best regards...

MisterN

I have a couple of things to add from when I did my 2001.5 S4:

1) You definitely need the small ratchet (1/4 drive) to get to the top screw like S4Dean said. I didn't have a T10 torx bit for 1/4" drive, so I tried a regular size 3/8 drive ratchet with the T10 torx. That didn't work.

Luckily, the 3 torx head screws holding my blower motor in also had regular hex bolt head on the outside, with the torx in the middle. They are 7/32" heads. I used my 1/4 drive small ratchet with a 7/32" socket and it worked great. So if you have a small ratchet, and a 7/32" socket, you don't even have to bother with any torx head tools!

2) After pulling the blower motor out of the housing following bskibbe's directions, I was able to get my blower motor to make a squeaking chattering noise while turning it by hand. The noise was coming from the two brushes on the motor itself, not the bearings. The springs on the brushes couldn't hold the brushes down hard enough, and they were chattering and squeaking. I could actually see the brushes chatter. 3-4 drops of 3-in-1 oil on these brushes stopped that. I put a couple of drops on each bearing for good measure, but I'm pretty certain the brushes were the source of the problem. By using only about a dozen drops of oil in total, I managed to avoid any smell coming from my now silent blower motor.

The good news for lazy people is that if you want to spray WD-40 down into the motor like LaserAvant did without pulling the motor from the housing, you are certain to get WD-40 on these brushes. Score one for being lazy!

3) There is a little device on the driver's side of the Glove Box that causes glove box to open slowly instead of just flopping open. When you close the glove box back up, you need to make sure the end of this device goes into the hole it came from. Otherwise your glove box will flop open instead of gliding slowly open.

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WARNING: No need to read beyond this point unless you are a complete gear-head geek who has nothing better to do than think about blower motor failures......
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4) For the **** retentive folks here who really want to FIX stuff instead of just making it work for a few more years (but are too cheap to buy a whole new blower motor) -- I think the permanent fix might be to replace the brushes. It looks like they have worn down to the point where the spring pressure no longer holds them down firmly, allowing them to skip and chatter. (All purely speculation on my behalf.) More speculation: The reason why the problem only happens while turning left has everything to do with the rotation direction of the motor, the shape of the brushes, and the strength of the springs. The brushes are angled with a leading edge forward, and when the spring pressure isn't enough to hold the brush down firmly, the leading edge will chatter. Since the motor always turns one direction, only one of the two brushes ever has the leading edge towards the direction of rotation. (If the blower motor was wired to spin in the other direction, the noise would only happen when making right hand turns...)

More speculation: Turning seems to trigger the problem because the weight of the brushes pushes out against the spring when you turn. Just like a pair of sunglasses sliding across your dash. Since the brushes are worn down, the spring is already extended more than when it was new. So now it takes just a little bit of force to compress the springs just enough to allow the brushes to chatter. Theoretically, if the brushes were to continue to wear down enough, there would be a point where it would chatter all the time, not just when making left hand turns.

Finally, one thought on lubes. While WD-40 will do the job for a while, and 3-in-1 will probably work for a little while longer, I think packing the commutator with dielectric lube could be the longest term, most ****-retentive solution short of replacing any parts. (Assuming I'm even right about all of the other stuff I've speculated on...)