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No Blower At All

4K views 12 replies 6 participants last post by  SidewaysEightSix 
#1 ·
New owner of a 96 Astro cargo van here. I'm hoping you guys can help. I've been looking for an answer for two months now (I've searched here as well) and it's getting really hot now (Phoenix Az)

I have no blower motor at all. Well. Let me rephrase. It doesn't run 99.9% of the time. Doesn't matter if it's heat, AC, defrost... Nothing. It has blown twice for short periods which tell me the electrical system is mostly intact. But it only blows out the defrost vent when it did.

First I found the common vacuum leak that all vans have due to GM using that dumb nylon plastic that turns to a mess after its exposed to engine bay heat for any extended time. No change. Then I found the other rubber hoses all deteriorated. I believe I have those ran correctly as well.

Second I replaced the resistor pack/card located in the blower housing. It didn't look great. But alas. Still no change.

So I got a new blower motor as well. Nada.

So then I checked all fuses (shoulda done first I know) but found no issues. I even checked that they had good connection. I ohm'd out the ground and found that was fine as well. Then I swapped AC relays with no luck. So I'm assuming those are fine.

Finally I tried a junk yard Fan/AC/Vent switch which was in very very good shape. I swapped it out in the parking lot of the junk yard and.... Nothing. Then when I was about halfway home the fan came on randomly through my defrost vents! It was on med-high and dumb me I checked to see if all fan speeds worked, and it stopped the second I moved the switch and never came back.

So I went back online and found the resistors sometimes fail and take connectors with. I inspected all the connectors I could find including at the resistor pack, behind the battery. And all that go to the switch in the dash. All connections look fine. I tried manually jumping out my switch in the dash, nothing. And it appears I'm only getting 1.7-2.0v at the resistor pack.

What am I missing guys? I love this van so far, but if I can't get even some air moving around, I'm not going to be able to drive it 8 months of the year because the climate is simply too hot here. Help. Please!!
 
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#7 ·
I recently had the high speed blower go out and went through all of the normal fixes and tests like you. It took an auto electric shop to trace it out using the wiring diagrams and testing it at every connection point in the harness to find that a wiring connector had burned out, and it was located in a recess in one of the fenders. I would never have found it myself. I had to have them run a new wire taking that connector out of the loop to fix the issue.

I think you have a burned out or shorted connector (or multiples) somewhere in the harness that goes to the blower as my symptoms were similar with reduced voltage on the high speed circuit (in my case.) Those wires do not go straight from the control panel to the blower, they are routed to several other places in the body / engine compartment using connectors before they go to the blower. You need the factory wiring diagram to locate them.

If you aren't able to trace it out, I used Auto Electric Specialists in Downtown Glendale to repair mine. It's a small shop and is not impressive when you pull up, but Steve knows his stuff. He did troubleshooting of the wiring on military aircraft for years before retiring and starting this shop. I'm not sure what his rates are, but the repair on my high speed blower issue ended up running about $300 because of all the time he took tracing out the harness to locate the issue. I would never have found the problem myself, so felt like the cost was well worth it to keep driving the van in the Phoenix summer.
 
#9 ·
Glad to hear that you have full voltage on the RED wiring at the blower motor controller/resistor, it's different colors on different years.

The next step is to verify voltage from fuse #12, the brown wire that goes to the blower controls, wiring diagram here: https://sites.google.com/site/astrosafa ... ac-airflow

Edit: or up above like Leeann posted :)
 
#13 ·
Nice lol.

Anyway after pulling out the shit wiring and repairing the OEM dash harness I found my problem for the blower

Ignition switch was faulty. Only sending 3v to one bank of the cabin fuse box. Now I have full blower function. Still have the vent issue and no AC so I still have work to do. But making progress.
 
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