C180 Heater Blower Intermittant Fault

[RoyRoy]

Hi to you all.

This is my first post.

I wonder if anyone can help with this.

We have a 1996 c180 and the heater blower has been acting up of late. When the car is first started the blower works just fine. After just a few minutes the blower stops working, but (sometimes) comes back on if you bang the dashboard; but even if it does come on, it soon goes off again.

A friend of mine checked the blower motor with his meter and said the regulator must be at fault. I put a new regulator on today and the fault is still there

Can anybody suggest where I can look next, please?

Thanks in advance,


Roy

 

[salesac1]

Hi to you all.

This is my first post.

I wonder if anyone can help with this.

We have a 1996 c180 and the heater blower has been acting up of late. When the car is first started the blower works just fine. After just a few minutes the blower stops working, but (sometimes) comes back on if you bang the dashboard; but even if it does come on, it soon goes off again.

A friend of mine checked the blower motor with his meter and said the regulator must be at fault. I put a new regulator on today and the fault is still there

Can anybody suggest where I can look next, please?

Thanks in advance,


Roy

The blower motor itself and/or the heater control panel. Like you I changed the regulator first, when that didn't work I changed the control panel (2nd hand), when that didn't work I fitted a new motor (aftermarket), when that didn't work I changed the control panel again (2nd hand again, but tested working)...now it works (I think).

Mine is manual A/C, not sure how that compares to yours.

Good luck!

 

[RoyRoy]

Hi salesac1 and thanks for your reply.

I'm off to our local Mercedes dealer tomorrow to see if I can get some motor brushes to give that a try. It's a strange thing, but my wife, (who knows nothing about cars), said that she thinks it's the switch itself. I have lost count of the amount of times she has been right about things that she knows very little about, so my best guess is that she will be right again! Having said that, it's an old car that we want to keep, so a pair of brushes will be fitted anyway. If that doesn't work, I'll move on to the switch.


Thanks again.

 

[RoyRoy]

SOLVED Heater Blower Intermittent Fault

Hi to you all.

This is my first post.

I wonder if anyone can help with this.

We have a 1996 c180 and the heater blower has been acting up of late. When the car is first started the blower works just fine. After just a few minutes the blower stops working, but (sometimes) comes back on if you bang the dashboard; but even if it does come on, it soon goes off again.

A friend of mine checked the blower motor with his meter and said the regulator must be at fault. I put a new regulator on today and the fault is still there

Can anybody suggest where I can look next, please?

Thanks in advance,


Roy

Although my post had a shedload of views only one person bothered to reply Just in case some other poor soul has the same problem in the future I wanted to end this thread by explaining what the problem was.

The problem in fact turned out to be the brushes in the blower motor were worn out. I found a pair on ebay for just a few quid, fitted them and hey presto:bannana:

For anyone wanting to change the brushes themselves there is a truly fantastic article that someone took the time to write, with loads of pics that takes you through the fitting step by step. OZBENZ - Australian & New Zealand Mercedes-Benz Forums ? View topic - How to replace blower fan brushes.

One thing that was a pain was that the original solder that the brushes were held on by, would not melt. I used 3 different soldering irons and could not manage to get them free. Instead, I soldered the new brush (tails) on top of the old solder and cut off the old tails. Works a treat.