The fan force is with you...NOT

[nathan]

Goldie,
if you want to compare the two, u can give me a call next time in perth. i have some at my dads place (both 126 and 116) which are removed from the car so should allow you easy visualisation.  alternatively, TJ or PB might be able to look at them and tell you whether it will work (i could look at them, but being mechanically intellectually impaired, their opinion is of far greater value!)

[goldacre]

Cheers nathan, will catch up after 11am as discussed. This will give me some time to investigate a nice Alpine headset for the Merc that has caught my eye in Alberts HiFi 

Cheers again for your help on this, its doing my head in at the moment 

J

[goldacre]

Big thanks to Nathan and Tim last Saturday for the hands on intro into a W116 and W126 fan and HVAC system (side by side even)

With the use of a 12 volt battery we worked out in no uncertain terms that the W126 has more power than a W116 fan although the w116 fan output was good.

A curious observation was when we ran the W116 fan into the W116 HVAC system the air flow out of the vents was pretty lame, worst than mine.

Does a W126 fan fit into a W116 fan box? well, yes and no. you can get the W126 fan into a W116 fan box but you will need to make a custom housing/support chassis and plate to seal the fan into the box, yes, can be done but a lot of fiddling around with a MIG welder and metal, definitely not a straight swap with some inconvenience.

The other catch is the fact the fans rotate in different directions to each other so you would have to reverse polarity of the W126 fan (would there be any hassles with doing that?)  we did reverse polarity on the W116 fan and its performance was great (just wouldn't blow air into the fan box i guess) provided that it is the Red wire that's Positive and the Brown wire is Negative.

I took a heap of photos of the fans and attempted installations as well as the W116 HVAC box from all different angles but will have to wait till i re-size them and work out how to post them  i am pretty sure there is a 'how to do post' here somewhere.

Once again big thanks to Nathan and Tim and if there is anything i missed in this post feel free to add in as i discovered two bottles of Penfolds 28 and 128 that night and i believe it is bad for ones memory? i can't remember exactly 

J

[goldacre]

So far i have removed the blower box and all is in good shape, no corrosion around the fire wall, some evidence of water ponding in the base of the blower housing (about 30ml ish) . Was unable to remove the blower shut off flap wire neither the blower motor electrical wire which i ended up cutting off.

I have done this as i am now in possession of a brand new blower motor X AutohauseAZ  (because it was there) and intend to fit in the next week. before that i will be sticking a vacuum cleaner hose into the HVAC box (and my camera) to clean out the buildup of crap as when i put my hand in there it was pretty grotty.

If all this fails to improve the air volume out of the vents i will have to surrender as i am not taking out the HVAC box 

[TJ 450]

I hope it works. How are the flaps BTW?

I plan to charge my 6.9's system with Hychill shortly and I'm afraid I may have the same problem, but only with the driver's side vent.

Tim

[WGB]

I'll be interested to hear how the new fan goes as I have been eyeing up that autohausaz one.

Bill

[goldacre]

hi TJ450, Interesting to hear only your drivers side one has poor output as my drivers side and passenger side outputs are (relative to being overall poor air flow) better than the middle vents. Looking at the passenger side vent pipe connections if they have disconnected you would certainly feel the air coming out through the bottom panels?

As you saw at Nathans when we reconnected the blower to the HVAC system he had laying around, amongst other bits  the air flow was pretty lame overall 

These HVAC boxes deserve a complete dissection to see if there is any possible cause of internal restrictions we haven't seen yet, i guess all we need is a donor HVAC and someone experienced with dissection/surgery 

Hi Bill, the fan when it arrived looks identical almost as the wire attached to it is way too short, about 25cm compared to the original one that snakes into the top vent panel, i will connect via two female connectors to the original car wires and due to the size of the wires (thick) there should not be any volt drop. Hope to get this done next week as i am off to work on the boat this weekend (getting jealous about the Mercs attention    ) 

Due to the new posting arrangements AutohausAZ can only send you the fan via an internal USA address as the part is sourced direct from an outside supplier, fortunately my Bongo International account came in handy for that at US$90ish postage charge so if you are interested in getting one i can offer you my Bongo service.

As mentioned before there appeared to be a lot of flaky crap when i stuck my hand through the blower entry point into to HVAC system, if it is disintegrating fins on the heater/AC evaporators perhaps this could be part of the problem? will clean out the vacuum bag and inspect what comes out when i stick the Hoover in there 

G

[goldacre]

Hi folks, update on developments with the fan replacement. the one supplied from AutohauseAZ is slightly different 

the last number on the part ends in 3 whereas on the original fan it ends in 1, difference is the fan spins in the opposite direction and the cooling vent tube on the motor is at the 11 o'clock position instead of the originals 12 o'clock position.

Did some research on electric motors and reversing the polarity seems to be a 'no problem' fix and tried it out on the new motor and performance either way was the same, and excellent, hope this pushes more air. will track down some convoluted tubing to connect the cooling pipes together.

Despite what i felt in the HVAC box the hoovering revealed not very much evidence of disintegration 

Hope to get it all back together for a nice long trip to Busselton this weekend, she needs a good run.

J

[Hemersam]

I have heard of someone replacing the 116 blower with one from a 126; supposedly, it pushed more air into the cabin, thus helping cool the interior during hot weather. If anyone knows about this for sure (and how to do it), I'd sure like to know before the next Texas summer gets here.
Hemersam

[Hemersam]

Oops! Guess I should have read page two.
Hemersam

[goldacre]

Touched base with Tom Hanson at Irvine Classic Center regarding the different types of blower motors and whether the one we need for our cars is available, here is the response:

Interesting variations on the blower motor. There is a different one for
RHD cars with manual a/c or no a/c. There is another for cars equipped with
automatic climate control, and it's the same of RHD and LHD. The RHD blower
motor is discontinued, so it's going to be tough from here. Sounds like
you're on the right track anyway. I'll look for your emails. I'm out of the
office for jury duty the rest of the week..

Kind regards, / Mit freundlichen Grüßen,

Tom

So looks like we have to make do with the USA version 

Here is something else Tom told me, the circular cage like fan connected to the blower is called a 'Squirrel cage' 

G

[Big_Richard]

more professional and technically correct is the name "centrifugal fan" 

[WGB]

Thanks for all the invaluable info Goldacre.

My Fan functions well and has a good flow in all the correct places summer and winter but after about 10 minutes of A-C cold it starts squeaking.

I have a spare second hand fan (courtesy of Nathan's $300 rolling chassis special) and will try to strip it and see what is in it that is likely to squeak - whether commutator or bearings or both.

By the fact that it changes frequency going around corners and over bumps I would imagine the problem would lie in the motor bearings allowing movement of the armature - but the noise probably comes from the brushes on the commutator

After my summer program of "improvements" is over I am going to tackle the fan motor squeak, dashboard rattles and stuck HVAC flaps.

For the flaps I am first going to attempt the "Bentley Publications" fix using the addition of a small spring to hold the flap in it's correct position.

If that fails to work  I may remove the whole bloody system and attempt a re-foam of the hinges - last resort only.

Bill

[nathan]

please stop reminding me of the 'chassis special'...i think we spent more on fuel picking that thing up than the 300 hundred!
come to think of it, i reckon ive done ~1000km with trailers retrieving mercs in the last couple of years (dont forget the goldie margaret river run!)...

back to the subject at hand, have you reinstalled your autohausaz version yet? how did it run?

[koan]

My Fan functions well and has a good flow in all the correct places summer and winter but after about 10 minutes of A-C cold it starts squeaking.

I've had the same thing with non-MB blowers. I think the problem is that the bearings are sintered bronze "Oilite" bushes. Not so much wear but lack of lubrication, the old English car manuals used to suggest boiling new bearings in light oil for two or three hours before in light oil before installing them. Maybe that's worth a try on the spare.

If that fails to work  I may remove the whole bloody system and attempt a re-foam of the hinges - last resort only.

Same here, I had a practice run on my wife's Peugeot last Christmas (didn't tell her that), it went well. The M-B can't be any worse, mentally preparing to have ago this Christmas.

koan