Strange problem with Heater - 2003 Ford Windstar

A couple years ago the blower motor in my SuperDuty quit. We were on a road trip and the next gas stop I banged on the housing in passenger footwell and it came back.

I still haven't done anything more and it continues to work after a couple years. Really my reluctance is that I'd only want OEM and they're not cheap.
 
I've seen heater motors start to slow down while pulling a lot more current than they should. A new motor fixed the problem.

The squirrel cage fans can get brittle and be hard to remove, so make sure you can it it off your old motor before you buy a new one, if needed. You can usually buy them with or without the fan.
Sorry what is this about?

I replaced the actuator and the heater is now working. The remaining problem is the reduced force of the blower/fans. Both problems happened simultaneously.
 
@dnewton3

I am curious why you think it could be the blower resistor control board.and not the blower motor itself?

I am assuming these are tow different parts and not one unit?
 
@dnewton3

I am curious why you think it could be the blower resistor control board.and not the blower motor itself?

I am assuming these are tow different parts and not one unit?
You can look up the parts on rockauto.com, or your preferred supplier. This vehicle does have a separate resistor, as most vehicles do. It effectively has steps and controls fan speed. They burn out fairly often in most applications. By nature, resistance = heat and so they're often actually shoved into your HVAC box so air flow passes over them to help cool them.

Typically, however, a failed resistor will result in the fan only working on high. However sometimes only one or two steps will fail so I suppose you could have only the lower speeds....still on high usually it's not really using the resistor at all (full power = full speed). But I don't know exactly how this specific one is laid out.

Figure out where your blower motor is and if this happens again (ie no high speed) bang on it and see if it speeds up. Crude but potentially effective test to see if the motor is failing.

Also be sure that you're truly not getting full fan speed. It's possible a diverter door is just sending some of the flow to your feet or defrost etc, IOW the available flow is being split between destinations. If so, you've got an issue with where air is directed rather than fan speed.
 
You can look up the parts on rockauto.com, or your preferred supplier. This vehicle does have a separate resistor, as most vehicles do. It effectively has steps and controls fan speed. They burn out fairly often in most applications. By nature, resistance = heat and so they're often actually shoved into your HVAC box so air flow passes over them to help cool them.

Typically, however, a failed resistor will result in the fan only working on high. However sometimes only one or two steps will fail so I suppose you could have only the lower speeds....still on high usually it's not really using the resistor at all (full power = full speed). But I don't know exactly how this specific one is laid out.

Figure out where your blower motor is and if this happens again (ie no high speed) bang on it and see if it speeds up. Crude but potentially effective test to see if the motor is failing.

Also be sure that you're truly not getting full fan speed. It's possible a diverter door is just sending some of the flow to your feet or defrost etc, IOW the available flow is being split between destinations. If so, you've got an issue with where air is directed rather than fan speed.
Please see the recent thread i started. Perhaps it is related to the "where" you are mentioning?
 
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