Blower motor- speeds lost. Resister pack fix.

[Harbilly]

I covered this before on another site but here we go again. These are my words, I wrote them and now I'm using them again.
Okay. So two of the three coils were burned out On my resistor pack and my front heater fan ran on fast and fastest only. I thought about getting out my nickel wire and trial and erroring my own coils but I found it much easier to go to the wrecker and buy the 'sealed in ceramic' resistor pack from a previa (the connector was the same though the thing itself is bigger and has a two screw rectangular plate -- look for the fan under the front hood of the newer vans and find the wire and plug to guide you to the pack). Undo two screws. Pay for it. Walk to your Vanwagon and just plug it in. At first mine was wedged half way in to the hole that fit the old one but later I carved the hole bigger and got the whole ceramic block inside the plenum and in to the air stream so the flowing air could do its job in terms of helping cool the part. The fan now seems to have low, medium, medium again and really fast. I can live with this. It was an easy fix.
In any case, the older previa van resistor packs are REALLY easy to find at the wreckers whereas our packs are all pretty much long gone. Just remember: the ceramic enclosed previa pack will get HOT just like our open air coils. (Lower speed setting = more heat). This seems to be fine but if the ceramic is not inserted into an enlargened opening but merely left resting on the plastic plenum it WILL melt the plastic. Once the access hole is carefully made bigger it is possible to set the pack in the air stream and all seems well.

[Sean]

So the thought I had on these resistor packs was to figure out the resistance of each resistor and just solder some new ones on the old fitting... Resistors are fairly common pieces of electronics and you may be able to rebuild them from radio shack for a 2 or 3 bucks. I may have to do this soon because there's no low on my front fan.

Sean

[timsrv]

So the thought I had on these resistor packs was to figure out the resistance of each resistor and just solder some new ones on the old fitting... Resistors are fairly common pieces of electronics and you may be able to rebuild them from radio shack for a 2 or 3 bucks. I may have to do this soon because there's no low on my front fan.

Sean

These resistors would need to be rated pretty high.........like 50w or so. Radio Shack has lots of the little guys (maybe up to 1 watt), but I don't think they have anything big enough for this application. I sort of like the Previa resistor replacement idea, but not too keen on cutting my van. Since the stock resistors last about 100k miles or so IMO it's not worth hacking the van (I like clean and easy). I seem to go through blower motors more frequently than resistors anyhow, so I'm content with the stock ones. Tim

[Harbilly]

Ya, I was going to point out the heat thing.

I hear you Tim but I got tired of waiting for a stock resister pack to show up in the boneyard that wasn't burned out. They're pretty rare here. I just assumed Toyota was a dead reed on this but maybe They are not. Or Tonkin or 1st might have them. I really didn't do my homework on availability. Sometimes I get tunnel vision and just assume parts are no longer available.

I don't mind cutting my van. The first hole I drilled through the body was traumatic but now that stuff doesn't phase me.

[timsrv]

Well, I do remember feeling some pain last time I bought one from Toyota.......It was around $50 I think. www.RockAuto.com has them for about half that, but there's some confusion with those guys about front vs back. I ordered from them 1st, but got the one for the back instead. I'm guessing if I would have ordered the one for the back I would have got the one for the front.......but who knows . Tim

[llamavan]

You paid HOW MUCH, Tim??? Last time I bought a batch, they were a lot less than that.

It wouldn't be so easy for those with A/C, but the part to cut into is just plastic — the front half of the air chamber as it comes out of the blower motor — and those are easy to pull from non-A/C parts vans (gotta get that blower motor post up so's ya'll can see what I'm talking about ... OK, that's the NEXT indoor project!).

I've been wanting to do the Previa resistor pack fix for awhile because it should be permanent — the ceramic protects the resistors. (Alas, my vans always find other priorities for me. I still love 'em anyway. )

Gwen

[timsrv]

Yeah, it was spendy. I might be remembering it wrong, but I don't think so. I have an account at a local dealership that automatically gives me 30% off of MSRP, and the price I paid was including my discount . Tim

[sdwvan]

hey all - I have a related issue, I just ordered new resistors, relays and blower motor to try to resurrect the heater since the PO neglected the poor thing. Since the whole dash is disassembled I found a receptacle on the harness unused and unplugged near the blower motor, there is also a bolt missing that mounts to the far left side of the squirrel cage and upside down. It seems like I may be missing some switch/relay/computer to something. I've been pouring over the online manual but haven't found anything. The items on the van that aren't functioning include, AC, Cruise, windshield spray, heater, blower motor, rear heater/blower. So it could be related to any of these. I'll try to post the pic, it's a bit blurry but the connecter I'm talking about has yellow tape on it. Appreciate any input!
Thanks
Scott

[timsrv]

I'm not sure what that's for.......sort of hard to tell anything from that picture. If you could get a close-up shot of the pin configuration and / or tell me how many wires and the colors of them I could probably figure it out. My guess is it's not related to the blower circuit, but who knows.

When you have a blower problem the 1st thing to do is check the breaker. There are 2 of these (one for the front blower and one for the back). Use a paper clip or something small to stick into the little black hole (see picture below). If the breaker is tripped, you should hear a metallic click and the fan should start working again. You should have your fan set on high to test just in case the resistor is burned out. If that doesn't work, then check for 12vdc at the blower motor leads. Don't use a common ground (put your meter leads directly on the wires going to the motor). Report back what you find and we'll continue on from there (if needed). Tim

[llamavan]

That connector is for the "ice maker," which your van doesn't have. It's part of the wiring harness for all vans with factory air conditioning.

That's the good news. The bad news is that the connector has nothing to do with your heater.

However, your non-working A/C, rear heater, and front heater blower may be the result of a common cause ... there is a common fuse, for instance, labeled A/C. I know this because I thought I would be clever and remove it when I removed Skylervan's A/C. Next time I went to drive him, no heater blower. Wasted a LOT of time trying to figure out what I stoopidly done to myself.

Gwen

[sdwvan]

You're both awesome. I've been chasing volts and ohms through-out the dash, but I finally found a heater relay on the fuse block with some corrosion. I swapped in a similar relay from the cruise control and bam heater blower. It's only working on high so now I'm just waiting for my resistor that I ordered from Rockauto. Hopefully that will do it. I'll find out this weekend when I can work on it.
Thanks so much
Scott

[timsrv]

Gwen is most likely correct. I was thinking maybe ice maker harness, but couldn't get enough detail in that picture. FWIW, vans with factory AC have a 6 position harness plug (with 5 positions filled) that's taped off to the resistor harness (on the vans without ice makers). Now that I think about it, I think they usually use yellow tape.

Regardless or what that connector is for it sounds like you got it figured out. I'm interested to find out what RockAuto sends you. They sent me the wrong one when I ordered through them. Please report back with brand, part number, price, and if it actually works. Tim

[sdwvan]

ok I finally got to finish the project. What a PITA. Ordered new parts from Rock auto, replaced the resistor, the heater, the blower relay and the blower motor. Now have a fully functioning heater both front and rear. Thanks Tim and Gwen, I did find that the taped off plug is for the ice maker. Importantly, I ordered front and rear Four Seasons resistors from rockauto.com. The part numbers for the front is 20227 and rear is 20160, it appears to be correct on the website.
I'm super excited to be making progress on the van. The PO really neglected some things.
cheers and thanks
Scott

[timsrv]

That's great! Thanks for the up-date and part number information. I'll probably order a couple of those to have around just in case they become NLA. Tim

[IronhideVA]

Gwen is most likely correct. I was thinking maybe ice maker harness, but couldn't get enough detail in that picture. FWIW, vans with factory AC have a 6 position harness plug (with 5 positions filled) that's taped off to the resistor harness (on the vans without ice makers). Now that I think about it, I think they usually use yellow tape.

Regardless or what that connector is for it sounds like you got it figured out. I'm interested to find out what RockAuto sends you. They sent me the wrong one when I ordered through them. Please report back with brand, part number, price, and if it actually works. Tim

I had an extra plug down there, but it was blue, it was for the black speaker box under the radio. plug n play for me!

I do have a question though, my front air controls have 4 positions, low to high. the 1st position doesent work at all, 2 and 3 work, and position 4 works sometimes but cuts out when on full blast a/c? so far with heat it doesent cut off. Anybody know what could be the problem with position 1 not working at all, and position 4 being weird? my rear unit works fine on all speeds but the rear heat doesent get very hot at all, does the heater core need replacing? when front and rear a/c are on together the rear doesent get that cold either, is this normal for the vans age? I had the r12 converted to r134a with new compressor and components/hoses.

[timsrv]

Your lowest speed on your front blower not working sounds like a burned out blower resistor. The fan not working on high with AC at times is a bit odd. If it did the same thing with heat, I would suspect the blower motor was failing. I guess it's not too urgent getting that dealt with right away since we're in the beginning of winter. Next time it does it test the motor to see if it's getting voltage. If it's getting voltage, then the motor is going bad. If it's got no voltage there, then you'll need to do some troubleshooting. Use the electrical schematics in the service manual and trace the circuit until you find the place that voltage drops off at, then you'll have found the problem.

As for rear HVAC, I've never been too impressed with the performance of rear AC on these. R134A doesn't work quite as good as R12 in systems originally designed for R12, so to me your issue sounds normal.

I'm not sure about the rear heat issue. Does your temperature gauge indicate a normal running temp? Does your slider for temp control move? These rear sliders get messed up just like the front so just make sure that things are moving on the other end of the cables when you move the rear controls. If all that looks good, then I might start to suspect a plugged up heater core........but in my experience, that doesn't happen very often. Tim

[EZHIKER]

I just came across a bad dash blower switch on my latest project. Low did not work, the other 3 speed were fine. My resistor pack was replaced first and still no low. Swapped in another blower switch and it was fine.

[timsrv]

Yes, I should have mentioned that as a possibility. That resistor is so often the culprit it's easy to forget a faulty switch can cause this problem too. Good point. Tim

[IronhideVA]

I will check these things out, thanks to all for the help.

[Flounder]

Don't want to hijack the thread or anything...I'm troubleshooting a loss of ventilation in my van, too. None of the fans are working, front or back, heating or A/C. I've checked everything in the manual and everything in this thread. The problem seems to be the A/C cut relay. I can't find its location in the "Body Electrical" section of the manual, though. Am I just overlooking it?

EDIT: The problem IS the A/C cut relay. Shorting the contacts on the front heater relay enables the front cabin fan to operate in all speeds. Still can't find the lousy cut relay, though. At least the fan is running, and I don't have to start driving in the morning with foggy windows...