I can't find Karl's original post anywhere, but I found enough comments and
pics in the Samba thread to figure it out.  Worth a try.  Thanks for the
info everyone!

Stuart

-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of
David Beierl
Sent: Monday, April 08, 2013 11:31 AM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Re: Heater fan CHIRP!

At 01:52 PM 4/8/2013, Stuart MacMillan wrote:
>It's so loud and high pitched that it's painful to use the blower, even
>with my reduced hearing.  But, as I continue to, it's becoming less
>frequent.  Do these things ever fix themselves?  It's probably  dry
>bearing or worn commutator/brushes, but with only 140k on it (an '85)
>it doesn't seem like it should be worn out since my '84 worked fine for 20
years and 225k.

It's screaming in pain, man!  Yes, it's a dry bearing, and it can only get
worse as you run it (but maybe better as the weather warms up).  The only
proper fix is to pull it and either properly lubricate or replace the
blower, but you may be able to stretch it out for a long time using Karl
Mullendore's trick of drilling a hole (or as I did, two holes together, one
to sight through) in the front sheet metal so you can squirt TriFlow or some
other high quality lube onto the rear motor bearing which is the one that
takes the brunt of it.  Search theSamba for the Mullendore Port, look in our
archives for my posts on how to disassemble and lube the blower (assuming
you haven't wrecked the bearing by running it too long), and look in
picasaweb.google.com/dbeierl/ for photos of the blower motor internals
showing what needs lubing.

If you're going to replace the blower, which is certainly the conventional
wisdom, be advised that Meyle blowers have been reported to be very noisy on
speeds one, two, or both.  I used one to replace the toasted motor shown in
my photos and certainly would never again, although the user said she didn't
care.

Dennis Haynes is a strong advocate of always replace.  The several seized
motors I've rejuvenated, however, have had very little commutator and brush
wear, and simply needed freeing up and re-lubing, and all worked fine for
years after.  This is not a painless process however as you'll see if you
read my description of it.  Disassembly and reassembly of the blower must be
done correctly or you'll wreck it.

Yours,
David