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Old 09-23-2010, 05:18 PM
enb54 enb54 is offline
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2006 Xtrail
2006 X-Trail (Bona Vista)
 
Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: Red Deer, Alberta, Canada
Posts: 13
Default Blower Motor Blues

I am doing this right now, my motor started squealing at startup, and I saw (another forum) that a person in Russia and someone else in Australia had installed ball bearings on their X-Trail blower motors (replacing the OEM bushings) so thought I'd give it a try. Dealers want really big dollars for the motor and fan, who knows how much to install, and who knows how long it will last?

Anyway, first you must disconnect the negative cable on your battery, then set about removing the glove box, lower passenger kick panel, and the vehicle Electronic Control Module (ECM), plus all electrical connections to the blower assembly. You will be pulling the whole box out, not a job for the feint of heart. Next remove the bolts and screws holding the blower assembly (the whole thing) to the dash supports, move it slightly to the right and jiggle it down, at least you've now got it in your hands. Now, you'll have to separate the assembly so that you can get at the blower motor/fan assembly, and that means trying to bend some little plastic tabs out of the way so you can separate the whole shebang. After fiddling with them for more than an hour, I finally broke those tabs off and the whole thing finally came apart... You can use screws to reassemble the two pieces, that's likely what the dealer does anyway...

Now for the fun part... the fan came off the motor very easily, and here I'm stuck for a while... the motor is a press fit into the plastic housing, and the various gentle methods I've tried have not even budged it a millimeter, so I'm going to have a few refreshing beverages and ponder the problem, likely starting in again in the morning.

Likely you have already fixed yours, this is a DIY job for the experienced, the brave or the stupid, not easy.

Now since I'm not experienced or brave but probably stupid, I have completed this much and am determined to follow through to the finish. You would think that since these PWM (pulse width modulated) brushless DC motors are so expensive to replace, that they'd have ball bearings in them OEM, but I guess the extra twenty dollars would break the bank...

Will report back on my progress soon, and maybe even post a photo...
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