1998 Durango 5.2L

My blower motor cuts in and out quite a bit now. If I turn off the ignition for a short period of time, let's say, to pump gas, and crank it up again...it will take a good 5 minutes for the blower motor to turn on. On long trips for about 30 minutes or more, the blower motor slowly dies. After it dies, I wait a good 10 minutes and it will start up again. Even when its on high, it's still relatively weak. I read a lot of posts saying that the blower motor resistor could cause this problem. I switched them out, but I still have the same problem. I'm guessing it's the blower motor, but I want to make sure before I start tearing apart my dash. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Wanted to bump this thread. It was the only one I could find doing a search for a 1998 Durango with a blower motor problem.

I was driving around the other day and noticed my A/C wasn't putting out as much air as it normally does. As I kept driving, the output started dropping until I wasn't getting anything out of it. It had been on Max A/C with the fan setting at the highest possible setting. When I had the vehicle off for a little while and came back, the A/C kicked on when I turned the vehicle on, but not at the full power it should have been at, and as I sat there, the air petered off and died again. When I switched the selection over to the normal A/C, I got a whisper of cold air coming out for about 10 seconds, but then it went away again. All of the other settings for the Heating/Cooling system produced no air flow. I didn't try switching everything over to the heat setting.

Me and my roommate tore apart the dashboard to get at the blower motor. We checked the Blower Motor circuit on the highest speed setting and were getting a steady 12V. When we actually got the blower motor out, we connected it directly to the battery and put the fan on it. It seemed to work fine for over a minute, until we disconnected it.

We've reconnected the blower motor and all associated wires, and then the motor was just cutting out on some speeds, while working "fine" on others. Made me think of the resistor issue I've seen in so many '01-03 threads, but the resistor on this one is buried behind the dash (though right now we can get at it) and consists of 4 coils of metal that don't appear to have any problem with them. There's no discoloration or parts that are melted through.

...My roommate just wandered in to tell me that the blower motor, of its own accord, now appears to be working fine on all speeds and settings, though the slowest speed is barely moving the fan, and seems to have trouble starting again if he uses his hand to stop it.....


Right, so while I wait for folks on here to ponder on this one, I'm going to see if the local auto parts store has a replacement resistor I could try swapping out for the hell of it.

 

Change it out.

Most likely it is the brushes in the motor on the way out. I've seen this before and sense you are there there is no reason to remove the dash again. There also could be a thermo-breaker in the motor being thrown triggering the problem but most likely the brushes are bad. Replace the heater core while you are there!


If it continues (which I don't think it will) replace the switch.