First: Happy New Years everybody

I wonder how to remove the heater/blower controls in the dashboard?
I can't seam to figure out a way to do so safely… Without braking anything…

I wanna clean the Contacts to make the fan run properly again…

Thanks

Cornelius

Click to view attachment

You can access those contacts by unbolting the 13 mm bolt that secures the bracket to the front firewall and pulling the whole control unit out a couple of inches. You can't pull it out completely without disconnecting cables / wires (which I understand is a bit of nightmare to reinstall), but you should have enough access to clean those contacts. Just did this about 8 weeks ago.

I should have added that if your fan's not working it may be the actual motor in the housing upfront. Also went through that recently. If that's never been serviced it may be junked up like mine was (picture below). A good thorough cleaning of the fan housing/motor and control contacts has everything (mostly) working now. Taking out the blower motor/housing is a little more involved. Removing the fuel tank helped.

Click to view attachment

Thanks BeatNavy!

Next Question:

I did clean the contacts and setting I and II are working but not III

Any ideas/recommendations? Does the relay under the dash only works for setting III?

Which relay are you referring to? I wasn't aware these routed through a relay, but maybe they do.

The fan should come on low for I, medium for II, and high for III. Mine works on II and III (and would smoke up at the fan on I due to very high resistance, I assume, so I disabled it).

There is a 4 prong connection at the actual fan housing that contains two resistors leading to ground. Depending on which control setting you have selected it grounds through a path with high, low or no resistance (and thus changes fan speeds). I can't remember the actual grounding path (e.g., low goes through both of the resistors, I think?), but if setting III (high) is not working even after you cleaned it it's probably a bad connection at that 4 prong connection or something else in that resistor set not working.

I can try to find an old thread where we discussed which prong controlled which speed. If you can disconnect that from the housing without major surgery (e.g., removing the fuel tank) you may be able to test continuity or maybe just get the connector seated better.

Here's a picture of the four prong connector:
Click to view attachment
and the resistor set on the other side of it (inside the housing):
Click to view attachment

Ok, I found it. Yes, there is a Relay.

In the picture above, the upper right pole is the power input. The upper left is the low setting ground. The lower one opposite, just under the power pole, is medium. And the lower left one is high. At the connector in the trunk, the power line is always hot, and moving the fan speed select switch grounds one of the three poles - upper left for slow, lower right for mid, and lower left for high speed.

Clay Perrine helped me figure some of this out, like the fact that I guess the low speed actually grounds through both of the resistors while the mid only grounds through the bottom. The fan moving helps cool the resistors.

The fixed part of the contacts is often melted and uneven due to partial contact and
arcing.
Smooth out the surface as much as possible.
Probably good to disconnect the battery before doing it tho'
Seems to me the highest speed is the one that usually doesn't fail.

You mean the arcing on the contacts inside the control? I agree. I saw a fair amount of pitting there and had to try to get the contacts in an undamaged section of the trace without bending them to the point where they didn't make contact with the surface at all. It takes some playing around with it. I also think it's unusual that high speed isn't working. That was the one that was easiest for me to get working, and eventually I got medium working as well. Low just threated to burn up.

Thank you guys I got it! All three settings work now!

There was a plastic peace sticking up un the board, so every time you would move it, it would fold over and act like an insulator. There was also no slide or arching marks for Setting III, so I think it might never have worked…

For the sake of anyone else finding this via searching, there is only power on the power input (red/white wire usually) when the ignition is on and not in start.

The "blower power" relay is what's sometimes also called an "unloader" relay; it's off when starting in order to leave more power for the starter. On some cars other things are unloaded as well:

- Headlights (low and high beam, direct from the ignition switch via light switch)
- Horn (relay coil power from the blower relay)
- Wipers (run off the blower relay output)
- Headlights up (direct from ignition switch via light switch)
- Fog lights (relay coil power from ignition switch)

The starting point for all these is the smaller red wire from terminal X on the ignition switch.