E30 Zone

Hi all.Hoping some experts in the house may be able to help.Is my fan blower dying? Not sure exactly what this noise means.

When I got the car at the weekend, the fan didn't work at all.I replaced fuse 20 but the fan still didn't work and all you could hear was a relay type ticking noise.Today, however, after moving the car I tried the fan again and it fired up but made this horrible noise! It works on all speeds and makes the same noise on all of the settings.

Is that the sound of something stuck in there or maybe a blade broken off?

I'm quite new to the E30 scene and could only really find links regarding it not working at all or working only on setting 4.


Video of said noise..

Sounds like something is stuck around the fan blades. Take it apart and have a look!

willnz wrote:The bearings need lubricating. There is a guide in the WIKI how to remove and lubricate it.

+1, quite an easy fix, I managed to do mine easily enough.

Cheers all.Will have a play at the weekend

Exactly what mine does in the touring - been 'getting round' to that for a couple of years now, but def gonna fix it before winter!!!

Cheers for the wiki link!!!

Just to update, I removed the unit but the noise wasn't coming from anything simple (always the way).

One set of the fan blades must have been spinning off centre for quite some time as the shaft itself has movement.This would also explain the dead fuse (assume previous owner has tried to use the fan but it had been jammed and popped the fuse) and also explain how some of the dry and rusty area where the shaft fits through, suddenly freed itself up and allowed the fan to spin again.

Basically, the metal shaft holding the blades on one side has been making metal to metal contact and has even managed to turn the blades a rusty colour.It all moves around quite a bit, when it should be very tight like the other side.I assume this means the bearings are worn aswell, so I ordered a 2nd hand unit to give that a try.


You can hold the blades on the right and move them up and down & you can see the resulting damage to the shaft.It was the off centre spinning making the noise.The left hand side is tight as a drum.