BradyB

Please pass along your ideas Gentlemen.


I have had the car for a few weeks and I cannot figure out why I am getting just a little bit of air coming through the vents with the A/C on high. Low, Med, High I get no air to a little bit of air blowing through the vents. The heater and defroster seem to work. I called the original owner (he owned the car for 45 years) and asked him if the A/C used to work. He said that it was one of the better A/C cars that he had, blowing strong.

The A/C compressor is working great, staying charged and cooling as it should. It shuts on and off as the temp sensor reads too cold with too little air flow.

I replaced the fan motor with the correct motor and squirrel cage (supposedly). The new blower fan measures correctly and measures exactly like the original that was in the car that had been adapted to a different motor. The owner before me replaced the original with something cheap, it was obviously not stock and so I replaced it with a new stock replacement. Out of the housing, the fan motor blows like a little hurricane getting 13.4 volts from the functioning regulator.

I dug into the air box and made sure that the four vacuum actuators were all functioning. I really made sure that the door that directs air to the A/C exchanger opened all the way and it does. There is no intake blockages, either through the cowl vents or from the interior for recirculation.

I then pulled off the hood and passenger hood hinge and got to work on the blower air box and ducting. I took the duct out between the air box and the A/C cooler and there seemed to be a decent amount of air shooting out of the air box.

The A/C duct runs to the passenger side of firewall and then down and through the passenger's kick panel, the A/C cooler is inside the passenger fender. I took the kick panel off and pulled off the interior ducting. I shoved a shop Vac into the blower fan housing so it was sucking the air backwards through the A/C cooler. Putting my hand on the cooler I could feel air being sucked back through the cooler from the interior.
To make sure the cooler wasn't packed up with leaves or dead animals I grabbed my airline and put a sweeper nozzle on it and blew through the cooler while the vacuum was sucking through the blower housing. After supposedly blowing the cooler clean I didn't notice much of a difference. The ducts all looked pretty clean to begin with. If there is something blocking the cooler, it didn’t seem to move with a shop vac three feet of ducting away on one side and an air hose blowing from the other.

I then took the sheet metal duct apart again between the air box housing and the A/C cooler housing. I stuffed the air hose into the A/C cooler intake and sealed it up with some rags, with the air hose blowing it felt about the same as compared to the blower. I put the duct back on and sealed it up nicely with some black RTV.

After doing all of this I only got a slight increase in air pressure through the vents. I think that one of twothings may be happening:

#1 The intake side of the A/C cooler is still blocked or there is a gap in the housing or ducting. This is the last piece of the puzzle that I have not been able to access yet. What I plan on doing is pulling off the passenger front fender and disassembling the box and ducting that contains the A/C cooler. THIS WILL REQUIRE ME TO PULL OFF THE FENDER.

#2 The fan is not the correct part and it is not working efficiently with the housing. Although It seemed to be blowing decent air out of the air box, what I would figure as consistent for a 5.5" fan running off of 12 volts.

droldsmorland

year make and model please. If its a Toro or B body does it have comfortron?

BradyB

1963 Oldsmobile 88, Holiday, two door hardtop, factory A/C…

I haven't seen anything labeled as comfortron.


My HVAC options are

OFF VENT AC/Norm AC/Recir HEAT DEFROST

MDchanic

Did it ever work well while you owned it?

Did the fan come with the new fan motor? -and- [dumb question] Are you sure that the motor is turning the fan in the right direction? (after the changes you described, a mismatched fan and motor aren't out of the question, though I will admit I haven't heard of some being "lefties" and others being "righties").

- Eric

BradyB

I bought the car with a freshly detailed engine bay and an A/C system that "only needs to be recharged". I asked why the fan didn’t blow all that well and the seller that it should work when the A/C system is charged.

I charged the system and then pulled the fan, a rusty factory fan had been welded onto the motor shaft and not removable. I was thinking that it was the wrong motor and possibly spinning at too low of an RPM so I decided to find something as close to factory as possible.

I could not find anything listed for Olds 88, so went searching for 62 series Cadillacs and Impala parts. I found a new/used parts supplier on eBay that had the motor and a used blower fan to go with. The motor seemed to be a good match as it had the cooling hole at the top of the motor casing like the factory motors do that I've seen in pictures.

I compared the two fans, the one that came with the car and the new one and they were exactly the same. The new motor does seem to try and blow harder, at least now pushing some air rather than nothing with the old motor.

I will get you all some pictures tonight so you can see what I'm working with. I would like to better understand how much clearance the fan should have in the housing and make sure it's spinning the correct way. I wonder if I missing some kind of a tube or additional part that the fan should be sucking from inside the blower housing, like someone along the way forgot to put it back together properly.

BradyB

The recirculate mode just opens up the back of the blower box to the back of the dash. When it's open I can look right in to the back of the dash and defrost vents. It wouldn't be that hard to start sucking up the degraded insulation that always falls from up inside the dash. The orange stuff that just seems to be floating around everywhere.

When it was 80 degrees outside, were your A/C systems able to cool the interior of your cars?

BradyB

Here's the fan I purchased:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/380129750122...84.m1423.l2649

And a pic of my car...

droptopron

She's not blowing! I need the forum's suggestions.

I was gonna say to tell her you'll definitely marry her some day

Seff

I was gonna suggest a movie and then copious amounts of drinks. >.>

BradyB

oh yeah.

BradyB

I fixed it! I pulled the little cooling tube off the motor so I could see which way the fan motor was turning and guess what, the motor was turning the wrong way! The fan was turning the wrong direction in relation to the snail fan housing. So I took apart all the wiring that the previous owner had put together and rewired it correctly. Now that I cleaned out and sealed up all the ducting she blows strong and cold, just like new!

Thanks for the help again Gentlemen!

MDchanic

You're welcome!

It just sounded like a fan direction thing.

I never thought about the possibility of the PO hooking it up backward though .

Just when you make something more idiot proof, someone always goes and builds a better idiot.

- Eric

BradyB

The PO works at South West Airlines as a mechanic, kind of scary huh? This is only one of a handful of corrections I've had to make. For example, you should not be welding an exhaust hanger to the floor boards...

Seff

So she was sucking, not blowing? Figures.

MDchanic

Note to self:
Cancel planned flight on SW Air.

L69

Damn southwest just bought airtran and i have an airtran flight to FL coming up. Hope the turbines dont turn the wrong way. lol ahaha