2001 2wd blower fan resistor/connector

[RECox286]

Hey Y'all,

The resistor/connector has been an ongoing headache, because apparently, the engineers at Chevy undersized the wire to begin with. I have been looking for a while, but have not been able to find a bulletin to address this issue. Is there anyone out there that has the right poop? Rockauto shows several brands of replacement parts, but I don't know if any of them addresses the needed wire size increase to keep the fan motor working longer between major breakdowns. (???) I'm not sure I want OEM stuff to replace bad with bad, and wind up refixing... May as well just send truck to the boneyard because the ashtray is full!

Thx, Bob

[jplass]

I too have resistor headaches I have blown three and I smell wire burning on the fourth. I have been trying to find where the harness goes through the fire wall to find a short.
Apparently there are harness connector issues with these also. I took off the clip and reassembled but no apparent connection issues. I am out to work on it again to see what I can find.

[LEVE]

I'm not going to agree. It's likely not the wire size. A common complaint on almost any vehicle is that pesky blower motor resistor pack. Are you saying all the electrical engineers are wrong? That would be a pretty bold statement, one I'd sure not make.

IMHO, the problem is that whenever there's an electrical connection, power flowing and heat that the metal actually starts to crystallize and resistance forms. When that happens it's a round-robin affair; it only gets worse. The best you could do would be to silver solder the wires to the resister pack and hope for the best. But, even with that, over time the crystallization of the wiring above the silver solder would continue and creep up the wire under the insulation. Eventually even it would fail.

What's the solution? IMHO, it's to keep an eye on those connections and swap out the pack before it fails and before the connectors can become compromised. But that's a whole lot of work that almost no one ever does.... even me.

[RECox286]

Thx for input.

This is the only vehicle that I have owned, where I experienced this particular problem. The way I understand it is that there is so much heat produced by the pack that it starts to fry the finger connection. That, in turn causes a high resistance in the finger connection, causing more heat, which in turn starts to fry the next weakest link: the wire (only the center black wire) the insulation starts to look like a wrinkled crispy critter.

Electrical engineers, god bless them, are like any other human beings, they do not have halos and have been known to make mistakes on occasion. If that were not the case, then this bulletin board would very likely be mostly unnecessary. Also there would be no Recalls, or bulletins.

I believe there must be some fix out there, that will stand the test of time!

Sincerely, Bob

[RECox286]

As a post script, This problem seems to have cropped up only after the hvac controls were changed to 4 speed vice 3 speed blower, and the pack gained more circuit resistance value. Why fool with sucess?

[Astroplane]

Check startup amp draw on the blower motor. No factory resistor or resistor pack can hold up to a high amp draw blower motor. Check grounds.

As a post script, This problem seems to have cropped up only after the hvac controls were changed to 4 speed vice 3 speed blower, and the pack gained more circuit resistance value. Why fool with sucess?

Choose your 3 speeds, cut the appropriate wire.