Re: My mechanic is stupid

[SMILLER@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Hi Mark, welcome to the DIY Heater Blower Motor & Resistor Pack Club! 
My E30 resistor pack was intermittant for months, and I finally decided to
so something about it.  I had been told that you could remove it, clean up
and solder all the connections, and re-install it.  (The design includes
rivits and press-fit connections to complete the circuits - primitive!)  

Using the Bentley manual, I removed the fan motor, which is what it
looked like and sounded like you're supposed to do.  When I saw the
resistor pack, I realized that the blower could have, and should have,
stayed in the car.

My puny, wimpy little soldering iron wouldn't get hot enough to solder the
resistor connections, so I accomplished nothing.  Well, that's not true,
upon  reinstalling the blower motor I got it slightly off-center, so it made
helicopter noises.  That's an accomplishment, right?

I then ordered a new resistor pack - I think it was about $20 - and pulled
the covers again.  It was discovered, with the help of an actual
independent BMW  mechanic, that the fan motor was just ever so slightly
off to one side, where it made contact with something or other.  The
Bentley manual had made a big deal of getting the nubs in the slots, but
there was nothing about how you still have to check the clearance and
wiggle the thing back and forth to ensure proper installation.  This, of
course, can be pre-tested prior to re-installing the covers.

On my car the plastic fastener that holds one of the upper firewall cover
screws kept falling out.  Fortunately a handy parts car had a couple that
weren't being used.

Yeah, sometimes I'm my own mechanic, too.  Saves me a lot of money,
right?  And of course I have all that free time to keep doing these jobs
over and over again...

Scott Miller
Golden Gate Chapter
BMW CCA #44977
1990  325i/isH (hybrid)

>Date: Mon, 01 Mar 1999 08:17:52 -0500
>From: Mark Holbrook <holbrook@domain.elided>
>Subject: My mechanic is stupid
>
>I mean, really.  This is on an E30.
>
>1) The lower speed ranges of the heater fan quit, indicating something
>wrong with the resistor network.  Presumes you have to pull the fan
>motor out before you pull the resistor network (Bzzzt! Wrong!)  Breaks
>one side of the fan doing so.  Uses scotch tape to hold it together. 
>Resistor network tests good. Put it all back together.  Scotch tape
>breaks, flopping fan cage edge flies out and hits case on any speed
>setting higher than "1," creating loud racket.  Then fan quits on lower
>ranges again.  Owner and wife need car, so they freeze for two
>weeks.  Finally pull fan and resistor network again, epoxy fan cage
>back together and note bad thermal cutout on resistor board, fixed by
>simply cleaning the contacts.  All fixed in time for warm spring weather.
<snip>

------------------------------