Replacement Blower Problem

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01-19-2007, 01:21 AM
azale

Replacement Blower Problem

So my blower died on the coldest day this Michigan Winter and I bought a Pre-pwnd replacement on ebay. If any of you have ever replaced the blower on a 525i you know it's not easy. Anyway, I took the old one out and put the different old one back in but it didn't fit. It fit too tight. The fan is too close to the motor.

I have to move it back.

http://www.andyzale.com/album/albums...2006%20355.jpg

http://www.andyzale.com/album/albums...2006%20354.jpg

http://www.andyzale.com/album/albums...2006%20353.jpg

How do I move this fan back into place and how much stress can it take before it breaks? I have wd-40 on it right now but nothing is happening.

Throw me a bone.
01-19-2007, 11:26 AM
peat

Quote:

Originally Posted by azale

So my blower died on the coldest day this Michigan Winter and I bought a Pre-pwnd replacement on ebay. If any of you have ever replaced the blower on a 525i you know it's not easy. Anyway, I took the old one out and put the different old one back in but it didn't fit. It fit too tight. The fan is too close to the motor.

I have to move it back.

http://www.andyzale.com/album/albums...2006%20355.jpg

http://www.andyzale.com/album/albums...2006%20354.jpg

http://www.andyzale.com/album/albums...2006%20353.jpg

How do I move this fan back into place and how much stress can it take before it breaks? I have wd-40 on it right now but nothing is happening.

Throw me a bone.

I poured boiling water on the centre hub and gentley pryed them out.I used one of those tools for removing the clips on door panels,I had to modify the tool a bit to get it to fit around the shaft a little further.Hope this makes sence.
01-19-2007, 11:34 AM
peat

I poured boiling water over the centre hub and gently pried the squirel cages out using one of those tools for removing door panels. I modified the tool a bit to get it to fit around the shaft a little further. It worked for me,I was too cheap to buy the whole assembly and only bought the motor.
01-22-2007, 10:55 AM
Kibokojoe

The trick is even pressure.

Looks like the squirel cage has been pressure all the way down onto the motor. In my case there was still about 3/8" gap so I took an old open end wrench that would just fit over the motor shaft and clamped the wrench in a large vise. I then use a flat round punch and drove the motor shaft out of the cage. In your case you will need to open up a gap first. Have you tried using screw drivers 180 degrees apart and prying up evenly. I can tell you any extra stress on these 20+ year old cages will cause them to break.

Ken

Quote:

Originally Posted by azale

So my blower died on the coldest day this Michigan Winter and I bought a Pre-pwnd replacement on ebay. If any of you have ever replaced the blower on a 525i you know it's not easy. Anyway, I took the old one out and put the different old one back in but it didn't fit. It fit too tight. The fan is too close to the motor.

I have to move it back.

http://www.andyzale.com/album/albums...2006%20355.jpg

http://www.andyzale.com/album/albums...2006%20354.jpg

http://www.andyzale.com/album/albums...2006%20353.jpg

How do I move this fan back into place and how much stress can it take before it breaks? I have wd-40 on it right now but nothing is happening.

Throw me a bone.
01-22-2007, 10:11 PM
azale

Thanks for the help guys. I ended letting the WD40 soak in for a day or two (probably didn't do anything), and then I rotated the fans opposite of one another to break one loose from the shaft (I don't know why I didn't think of this before). Of course, the wrong fan broke loose so I used some channel locks to grip the shaft and luckily, the fan snapped loose. After that, I just rotated it until it slid away from the motor far enough.

I was pretty impressed with how much abuse the fan blades were able to take after 12+ years. I really had to bend them and twist them to squeeze the blower between the intake manifold and the bulkhead. Kind of a bad design but it worked. In 10 more years when the plastic is more brittle it will be a very bad design.

Thanks again.