Heater

[bhups]

Hi,

My heaters caput.

It has been suggested i get the blower unit and switch.

But i looked on bmw fans and it says 84 onwards for the heater switch is discontinued?

Is there another place i can get this from and the blower unit?

Euros says the blower unit is out of stock.

Thanks,

Bhups

[Grrrmachine]

Test things before you throw money at potentially non-existent problems.

"My heaters caput" means what? No heat from the vent? Fan doesn't blow? Used to work fine but now lost all functionality? And what car do you have?

[Brianmoooore]

What is it with some of you who just seem to want to throw money at their car? An E30 should be about the cheapest civilised mode of transport that it is possible to have, but not if your first reaction to any problem is to get out the plastic.
I've yet to see a duff fan speed switch, so I very much doubt you'll be needing that.
Similarly, 90% of failed heater fan units are easily restorable to full working order.
Assuming it's the fan that's failed, your next move should be to find out why it's not working, which starts by checking whether or not your door mirrors have quit as well.

[bhups]

The blower works on speed 3 and 4 but then sometimes works on 1 and 2.

Then all the speeds stopped working and after a bit started working again but now the blower seems very noisy than before.

Also it seems now that when the blower is working it lets out hot air but then gets cooler for some reason.

[Brianmoooore]

The fan motor is desperately trying to tell you that it needs oil. Take the motor out and follow the procedure that is (hopefully) listed in the wiki.
A heater that cools at higher engine revs. usually means that the heater hoses on the bulkhead are the wrong way around. One from the back of the cylinder head goes to the lower stub.

[bhups]

Will this just resolve the noisieness of it? What about the speed issue?

It was cooling on idle not at high revs.

[Brianmoooore]

The speed issue would initially have been that the motor didn't have enough torque to turn the partially seized bearings. This overheats the resistor pack, which may or may not still be serviceable. Lubricate the motor properly (it needs to be removed from the car, and powered up while out), and go from there.

[bhups]

Okay thanks for that, i'll try that first.

[bhups]

The speed issue would initially have been that the motor didn't have enough torque to turn the partially seized bearings. This overheats the resistor pack, which may or may not still be serviceable. Lubricate the motor properly (it needs to be removed from the car, and powered up while out), and go from there.

Did this and it worked. Its working well and quieter again.

Thanks for the advice.

[Mitchen]

In the midst of all the skullduggery that takes place.. A good example of why the zone is still a great place to be a part of

[Funnybear]

Having done the decent thing and used the search function . . . . . .

May I thank you yet again for this invaluable assistance and advice. My car now smells of WD40, but it once again has a functioning blower.

On top of my overheating issues it was the last thing I needed, but I manned up, bought new spanners and set about the firewall.

Having had my car dump what looked like a reasonable amount of coolant over the weekend all over my drive I thought I had better set about fixing the blower before setting about the cooling system (again). Which I duly did. Having also done a heat cycle with it sat in the garage, the temp gauge is rock steady and I'm hoping this will be the end of my overheating travails.

I've a sneaking suspicion that I didn't do the bleed valve up tight enough last time (Went in for an MOT and service, don't think they took too long to bleed it out last time but can't be sure about that) so she blew her top after hooning it back from Cardiff.

Keeping my fingers crossed now as she cost a small fortune at the garage and I can't stomach spending much more on her this year.

Cheers again anyway chaps.