Thanks for all the info, guys. I just did this job today. I have to put in at least a sentence about that b1tch of a rear screw! What a pain in the arse! Someone had previously mentioned this job involved a lot of blood...LOL...no kidding! After a couple of hours of bloodletting and swearing, I took the posted advice to cut out a piece of the rubber/foam preventing access to the screw. Worked great...only wish I had beeen smart enough to do that from the start! Anyway, job is done now and the blower works great on all speeds. This forum/website is so helpfull. My advice on this job is to let your friend who thinks he can fix anything tackle this baby...its worth giving up a couple of beers for. Oh, and if anyone happens to be a fairly big dude...do not attempt...you may just get stuck under the dash!!

now i remeber why i stick around here.

thanks

Would this be the same procedure ona 2001 Grand Prix GT? My fan only works on 5 and 1-4 do nothing.

Thanks.

My g/f and I followed the resistor replacement procedure about a year ago. Hers only had high setting for output with her heat/ac/vent. We got it back together and all four speeds work, but now there is NO output even though the blower is changing speeds.

I took the blower out today and spun the squirrel cage around- bearing is making noises. I'm going to get a new one (GM-replacement to not mess with cutting the generic harness) and hope that cures it. Thanks for the heads-up!


http://www.cardomain.com/ride/2191067

I just realized mine was doing this as well, nice to see it's a well documented and farily easy fix! Thanks JBO!


15.3 @ 89.97mph, 14's on the way?

Has anyone ever done this to a 2001 Grand Am? If you have is it the same as the cavs? Cause I've done it to mine alredy so I know what I'm doing...

My girlfriends car's blower completly stopped working after only having the higher speeds for quite a while so I think the whole thing just finally went. She's on her way over with the part right now. I hope it's the same...

Thanks guys!!!!!! I love this site! saves me a bunch of frustration trying to figure out the problem. I just orderd it from PartSource here in Canada and it came to $28.88 not bad at all

Thanks again!

I did my car's resister replaced today, thanks all guys! you really help me a lot!!!!!!

i found cutting some of the rubber matting out of the way makes the screw way easier to get at (some of you will probably yell at me about it) but thats how my dealership saves time doing it, the matting just sticks back into place without even being noticed

Good post!


___________________________________________________________

just did 2 of these this past weekend.

done in about an hour flat.

the first cav was missing the 2nd screw. and was my first one so it took a bit longer.

my 2001 had the 2nd screw, what I end up doing was sticking the 7/32 socket on there, then using a hex wrench to turn the screw free. (instead of using the socket wrench).

I did not bother putting that 2nd screw in. what a pain in the arse. but all speeds work now. so its all cool.

I did mine yesterday. DAMMIT I HATE THAT 2ND SCREW!!!!

My little bit of advice... do that one first before taking out the front screw on the resistor. Then the resistor stays in place while you wrestle with the back screw rather than coming down with it.

It's probably not much help, but I'm sure it's a bit.

I also didn't put it back in. Stupid POS location!!!

Solid Snake's blower resistor fix...

Restore all your blower speeds without having to remove your blower or blower resistors and without paying good money for an expensive, failure-prone replacement.

(I take no responsibility for anything that happens to you or your car before/while/after attempting this fix.)

1. First, remove your dash and stereo trim plate (same procedure as removing head unit)
2. Remove the two bolts holding the HVAC controls in place.
3. If your lowest speed does not work (very likely), splice a 2.7 Ohm, 15W resistor between the black/white and tan wires behind the blower speed rotary switch. If your second lowest speed was already working, You're done!
4. If your second lowest speed does not work (not as likely) splice a 1.0 ohm, 15W resistor between the tan and light blue wire. You're done!

I recommend the ceramic, wire-wound type of resistor. These are available at RadioShack for a buck or two. Note that the resistors WILL get very hot while you're using the lower speeds. They will get too hot to touch, but shouldn't get hot enough to damage plastics or wires. If the heat bothers you, I recommend attaching the resistors to a piece of structural metal under the dash (not your head unit). You can also attach a small heatsink to the resistors to help cool them and let them hang from the wiring. You may notice a funny smell as the resistors heat up for the first time. This will go away.

If anyone wants to make this a part of the first post, please do.

2002 Cavalier 2200 5spd

Hey,

Just wanted to thank everyone for their tips. I just bought the blower resistor from the dealer ($40 CDN) and installed it without much troubles (and this was my first fixup job on my car... ever!)


The hardest part for me was unhooking the two cables. There's a locking arm that you have to pry up with your fingers while you pull the cable out. This is hard to do when you're on your back underneath the dash!


For the rear screw I used one hand to push the insulation mat as far back as I could and with the other hand I used a 7/32 socket to remove. Wasn't too hard on mine.




Now I have all four blower speeds again!

Yet another thank you on this one. Took me two hours of messing with that last screw though, (maybe I missed something in this thread,) but I finally got it. I did however end up slicing the rubber mat to get at it. There was blood there was swearing, but my tools stayed in one piece. I think there's an engineer somewhere asking for a size ten in the...

Got the whole mess back together in under 5 minutes though, just getting it out was the pain....

I love deadlines, I especially like the whooshing sound
they make as they go flying by.

autozone carries it for $17.99

greetings ... at the beginning of the sticky, it was quoted a common ailment for third gens. all the same symptoms for my second gen ... sooo, is it the same procedure(s) Thanking all in advance. at this point I haven't investigated physically, I was more interested in reading all this info, very informative ... again thanks to all that contribute ... Irv


911 ... got fire?

It's been a while since I've been on this board since I no longer have a J-body. I'm happy to hear that people are still finding benefits with this thread.


_________________

RIP

Thanks for the post.I did mine in about 10 minutes,wasn't hard at all.The hardest part was getting the connector off the resistor.You really don't have to remove the blower motor,I didn't.Just use a 1/4 nut-driver with an x-tension with a universal and 7/32 socket.Easy as pie.Thanks again

lol my mom had this problem with her sunfire and so do i with my cav. cept she went to gm and paid 160 cdn to fix it

So is that autozone resistor the right one, the 12.99 one? I am picking one up for my GFs cav, the high is so damn annoying.



http://members.cardomain.com/vertz24 1998 Z24 Convertible
2.3-2.4 HO ADAPTER FLANGES 65$ shipped, Check GP Forum!

wow, autozone's price here is 25 bux for a wells unit. looks like I'm going to the dealer or through gmpartsdirect. anyone have bad luck with a certain brand?

I just changed the resistor -- boy was that fun! My fan runs at setting 3 on positions 1, 2, or 3 and full blast at 4. However, I ended up with nice white electronics smoke coming out from the dash that said I needed to change something. Got everything hooked back up, plugged in the fuse and so far no smoke!!!

Any tips or links for changing the blower switch to get back those lower settings? I tried swapping the relay under the hood and I still have only two fan settings (again, pos. 1 and 2 give me level 3 fan speed). Thanks!

this just happen to my 2001 z24.
great post! thx for the help

just fixed my blower last night. that last screw was a boitch!
all fixed. great post