So my 71 1.7 has been in the shop for a few weeks for a few issues. I had asked to get the fan bl.ower working. i was told today after every known attempt they had to call it quits unless I wanted to do some serious removal of parts to try and get to the motor I guess.

Any suggestion on what may have been missed?

thx alot

Will assume you mean the ventilation fan in the dash. If so it is a PIA. You have to remove the fuel tank. Voice of experience now. The stator is readily available. The one I bought was off enough it didn't work. Had to buy the fan assembly minus the housing. The above comment is obviously void if jumping power to the motor gets it working.

Chances are the shop didn't try very hard to get to the fan as it's impossible to get access to the fan w/o removing the gas tank.

Very common issue on early cars that do not have a screen in the cowl fresh air intake grille. Leaves and crud eventually block the fan from spinning, motor stalls and, usually, the brushes get so hot the brush holder plastic melts - then it's RIP.

As noted, fuel tank needs to come out. It's not too hard to remove the fresh air box, but a huge pain to get it back in. Google fresh air box removal for articles and videos. I just did this on my car.

Good advice I got from people here was to go with PartsGeek for the replacement. Much less expensive than other sources and it fit perfectly:

https://www.partsgeek.com/gbproducts/DC/170...3AaAmFDEALw_wcB

Good luck.

Ron

I got mine out w/o taking the gas tank out (shrugs)....then again I have girly sized hands and wrists, haha.

Maybe I just got the cover off to allow me to clean all the old leaves and junk out of it. I think that fried it, I'll have to take everything out at some point. Maybe a good time to get a new reproduction gas tank

Curious what the shop has tried? I bought a 914 last year and the fan wasn't even plugged in. I would start by seeing if its getting 12v. I would also remove the ashtray and short out the ground wire. Sometimes the copper traces are dirty and not making contact. I have also seen a wire get knocked loose when someone installed a stereo. If you have a spare fan try plugging it in and see if it works.
I would verify the above before going to the hassle of removing the fan.

yeah, start by cleaning those contacts under the ash tray if you haven't done it already. two minutes. Fixed my fan.

I got one working by moving the speed lever back and forth many times, basically cleaning the contacts. My lucky day!

How? Where can I get some instructions? Will a spray of dielectric “WD40” will work from the ashtray? Or do I need to rub it hard?. From inside of the ashtray.
Thanks
Click to view attachment

no grease or WD-40, pull the ashtray and you will see contacts on top of the unit, you can sometimes just use an eraser to clean the metal to allow proper conduction of ground. I found my issues was 2 fold. main issue was the wire harness at the fan under the housing was not put back in place correctly by the previous owner and also the fan bearing and motor were going too. We pulled the tank, took the air box out, replaced the motor/fan assembly inside the box with a new one. there is a thread here on how to do that and Ian Karr has his video of how to put it back in with new seals as well.
Get the seal kits from 914rubber, all the flapper seals and the fan seals will need to be replaced.

Electronic contact cleaner works too for the board contacts.