Technical Rattle from heater fan

[Rona Wagstaffe]

Hello, does anyone else have a high pitched squeak/rattle from the heater fan? Someone suggested I need to oil the bearings in the fan (somehow!?) otherwise it's £200 for new fan. Any advice or similar experience?? The pitch of the noise is sooo annoying it damages my love of my Panda!

 

[rambyuk]

Similar experience on our old 1.2, it's really annoying isn't it. Dealer ordered a new one for it in the end (warranty).

Not much help to you, but it's not unknown. Funnily enough back in the 90's my old Bravo did the same (I loved that car).

 

[Rona Wagstaffe]

ahhh, my previous car was a fancy late model Brava, i loved that too. I sold it to a friend and borrow it back sometimes (when I have to do the University pick up run) and the fan in that squeaks as well now! It's a conspiracy. How old was your car when you had the fan replaced under warrany? Mine is an 04.

 

[Herts Hillhopper]

From the 'been there, done that' school of Panda owners, here's a solution.
The fan can be removed relatively easily from the car, then lubricated (I used WD40), and have had nearly a year of squeak-free motoring. But, its a fiddly job.

I'll try and take some photos, but for now, text-only. There's a tiny hex-headed screw on the fan casing, which can be seen from the passenger side footwell -- on its own at "3 o'clock" behind part of the wiring loom,. This needs a 5.5mm socket. Unscrew this, remove the wiring connector to the fan and rotate the fan casing round anticlockwise, freeing it from the 'lugs' that hold it (bit like a big jam jar lid) With some careful twisting and turning, the whole unit can then be passed out via the footwell. I needed to unplug the brake light switch and another cable under there somewhere too, and 'posted' the passenger air bag isolator back into the glove box (didn't unplug this though).

Once the fan is out theres a rectangular section in the casing (with a big white paper label on it) with an opening that you can see the motor 'commutator' through (alternating copper strips and black plastic) Spray WD40 onto that and it will all go quiet. Reassembly is, as they say, the reverse of removal (ie very fiddly but can be done) Reconnect the wiring and don't forget to reconnect the brake lights. Total time -- 5 mins to loosen the screws, 45mins of faffing to get it out, 15 to go back! My local dealer has Panda with complete dash/heater dismantled right now, so may get photo there.

A quick PS - there's also a small plastic 'plug' on the end of the motor which can be prised off without taking the fan out. A quick squirt in there may help. I only found this after taking it all apart. Photos v soon!

Pete

 

[rambyuk]

Well I can't match Herts' answer there.. anyway ours was about a year old when they replaced it, hence not paying. Bet they love me down there

 

[Wee Smurf]

Stuartl was complaining that his Panda had this problem too... I told him that it was doing an impression of the owner :devil: and told him to go get it replaced under warranty.

 

[Rona Wagstaffe]

Many thanks for taking the time to write your reply Pete, much appreciated! I will probably have a go over Easter and add anything helpful to your note afterwards.
Cheers! Rona

 

[ivantate]

Just to add to this post as I fixed our heater last weekend.

First, it is far easier to do this with the glovebox removed. It is 4 screws at the front, a larger allen head bolt in the centre at the top and you have to remove the passenger airbag switch. Push it into the glove box and the connector comes off easily, I always made sure the ignition was off when this was disconnected and didnt have any odd lights flash up.

The fan itself is positioned right up near where you think the back of the stereo would be, there is the coke can sized motor casing sticking directly out at right angle and mine has 2x screws on the end with blue rubber washers.

I then tried squirting a number of spray oils (wd40, GT85 and ACF50) in the hole on the end on the motor where the rubber plug came from but this didnt help. In fact it made the car smell and the motor noisier after a bit.

So I took the power wire off the motor and the screw out as explained above, got the whole lot on the bench and gave the motor plently of spray while rotating it to work the oil in. After being refitted it still squeaked/rattled, nothing was catching and the bearing felt ok so I had another go.

I took the fan out again and then removed the screws (a small standard socket will take these out although they are star shaped) on the end with the blue rubber washers, this loosened the case but the wires from the motor were still connected to the terminals on the outer case. I levered the small section out where the terminals were and then with a soldering iron widened the slot it had lcome from so the planel would fit through. Only a small bit of plastic was needed to be removed as the panel can be rotated and slid through end on. This also isnt seen when reassembled and doesnt affect the heater.
I now had the motor removed as was able to clean the motor brushes and make sure there was plenty on lube on them and also in the bearings.
Putting it back together was fairly easy other than having to get chamfer the edge where the clip for the connector panel slotted in, it was about 0C and i didnt want to pressure the plastic too much incase it broke.

Now we have a silent heater fan and in reality it would have taken less than an hour if I hadnt tried taking the easy routes.


Also, another thought. WD40 is great and removing oil and grease, i use it on my motorbike for the back wheel. How can it also act as a lubricant? and would it removed the grease from the motor, stop the squeaking but accelerate the wear?

 

[Ingvarr]

WD40 is not a lubricant, its purpose to clean and displace water.
A proper lubricant should be applied after.

 

[Herts Hillhopper]

WD40 is not a lubricant, its purpose to clean and displace water.
A proper lubricant should be applied after.

The WD40 company might disagree -- on their own website they describe their product as "The world's number one multi-purpose lubricant." Further is they say"WD-40's lubricating ingredients are widely dispersed and hold firmly to all moving parts"
(see http://www.wd40.co.uk/)

P

 

[Ingvarr]

The WD40 company might disagree -- on their own website they describe their product as "The world's number one multi-purpose lubricant." Further is they say"WD-40's lubricating ingredients are widely dispersed and hold firmly to all moving parts"
(see http://www.wd40.co.uk/)

P

Regardless of what they claim, WD40 is very light lubricant. It does contain some lubricants, but the effect will last for a very short time.

I would defenitely advise to use some proper long-term lubricants after you clean with WD40, especially in intensive and/or long term use bearings.

 

[DraigFlag87]

I thought "WD" as in "WD 40" actually stood for "water displacer" does it not? I also get the squeaky fan (passenger side) but only sometimes, quite annoying but I'm hoping it will just cure itself (wishful thinking)
Not done it for a while now, touch wood!

 

[Herts Hillhopper]

Your are of course correct Ingvarr in saying that WD40 is not a durable lubricant and more of a cleaner. However, in my case, the part of the fan that I cleaned/lubricated (as described in my earlier post) was not a bearing, but the motor's commutator -- the alternate copper/space/copper etc ring that the motor brushes press gently against. Spraying this with WD40 stopped the squeak, nearly a year (and 15000 miles) ago. The fan is always turned on when I'm in the car (usually on setting '1' but on '2' to demist or on the recent cold mornings) and I've literally 'not heard squeak' in all that time... so it did the job and seems to have lasted. I would agree though that if you find that you need to lubricate the motor's bearings rather than the commutator, then a light machine oil would be a better bet.
Last on this subject from me.
Pete

 

[ivantate]

I think I sprayed too much of everything into the heater.

We used the car on saturday night and I turned the heater on, then upto speed 3. The girlfriend said it started to smell when she did that. And it did, I thought it was burning of some of the oil etc... but then when I put it onto speed 4 to make sure the job was done properly the fuse blew.

After changing the fuse it again ran fine on on speeds 1 and 2 but started to smell warm on 3 and popped the fuse immediately on 4. So I took it out again and the brushes/comm were very clagged up with dust which I can only imagine was worn off the brushes and this was causing a short on the higher speeds.

Anyway cleaned all lubricant/dust etc of it, took the brushes out and cleaned those and put it back together and it is working again. Ran it on speed 4 for a little while with no issues but wont be able to do a proper test for a couple of weeks.

 

[kipster1]

Thanks to Herts hillhopper, i just cured my annoying fan.
You said it was fiddly, but you never mentioned the fitment was designed by David Blane .

Thanks Again!

 

[Herts Hillhopper]

Glad to have been of help, Kipster... just remember that little 'thumbs up' icon at the bottom right of each 'helpful' post...

Pete

 

[kipster1]

Follow on from before.
Thanks Pete for your helpful post.
Hopefully you can help me on this one, the fan stopped working this morning!
I removed it again this afternoon and tested it across a battery and hey presto it works fine.
But it does not work in situ? Anyone know where the fuse might be, i've checked all fuses under the bonnet, and all fuses under drivers side and they all seem ok?

Thanks Cliff.

 

[kipster1]

All sorted, a blown fuse.

 

[Panda4X4_Skydome]

I followed the instructions from HertsHillhopper - very easy in the end though from the descriptions ( and the alternate method of removing glovebox) I thought it would be much harder.

Trickiest part is getting in a position to be able to get a socket on the 5.5m fastner on the motor. Once that was removed I could take out the motor with no hassle. I also pushed the airbag switch back into the glovebox and disconnected the brake switch wire but that was it.

The motor comes out / goes in very simply - just a little twisting is all it needs. If you can get on your back in the passenger footwell with a torch you can do this in 15 mins tops ( from start to finish).

Not sure if it's connected but I also cleaned out the housing ( that the fan blades / motor assembly drops in to ) as my noise was still there ( sounded like fan blades catching rather than squeeking etc). Once cleaned out and put back in all is fine. I haven't put the retainer screw back in for now to see if I need to get it out again in the future...

Thanks for the help...

 

[Herts Hillhopper]

I thought it would be 'fun' to resurrect this post, just to follow up on comments made way back (https://www.fiatforum.com/panda/138442-rattle-heater-fan.html?p=1910647) -- and report that some years and over 50,000 miles later, the fan is still working fine, and has not made a single squeak since (now, bet it starts squeaking again now

Remember, if you try this 'repair' that all you need is a tiny amount of WD40 to clean the dirt off the commutator... you are not 'oiling' anything. The carbon 'brushes' in the motor are made of graphite, that is a good 'dry lubricant' already. You only need the shortest of sprays to be effective in stopping the squeak.