Intermittant Blower Motor Repair in the Lincoln Mark VIII

Submitted by NYC LSC / 07-28-04

This article is aimed at helping Lincoln Mark VIII owners who experience the following problems:

• Blower motor cuts in/out over bumps;
• Unresponsive blower motor to HVAC head unit inputs;

If you experience these symptoms or similar problems, try this quick, free fix.

You will need the following tools:

• Small, “flat head” screwdriver
• Needle nose pliers
• Tie wraps (optional)

Procedure

Begin by opening the glove box. Remove all the contents. before continuing. Locate the stop tabs on either side and push them in to lower the glove box door down further.

Once the glove box door is down, you'll see the following behind it:

Next, locate the 2-wire jumper wire from the blower motor to control unit (black and orange wiring). With the key in the "run" position and blower motor turned to high, wiggle - and lightly tug - on the wiring to see if it cuts in and out. If it does cut in and out, this tech article is for you, so read on! If not, there may be other problems that the people on our Mark VIII discussion board could surely assist you with, so post a question!

**NOTE: You might want to disconnect your battery seeing as how you'll be working with electrical components. I didn't feel the need to, but it wouldn't hurt (this way you can't sue me for blowing out your blower motor, control unit or HVAC head unit, if you happen to short the wires together on accident).**

What you're looking for is the black, 2 wire connector on the top right portion of the blower motor. Once you've located it, unhook it from the blower motor with a small, 'flat head' screwdriver. Be careful not to pry too hard on the locking tab, as they're known to snap off. You might get lucky and be able to get it off without the screwdriver, so try that first.

Now...the reason for the intermittent blower is that the female connector ends of the wires become loose, thus losing contact with the male connectors on the blower motor. What you want to do is take your small, 'flat head' screwdriver and get the metal ends out from the protective plastic connector. Once they're out, you'll want to use your needle nose pliers and "crimp" (or squeeze) the gap on the female end to make it smaller (if looking at the picture, you'd want to squeeze the left and right sides).

Once you've "crimped" the female ends, test fit them onto the blower motor without the black, plastic connector. You MUST make sure that you install the wiring as it was when you first saw it!! (black wire goes on top, orange underneath) Once you're confident of a nice, tight fit with no play, go ahead and fit the wiring back into the black, plastic connector (attaching clip is face up, and the word "PUSH" reads right to left, orange wire goes on the left, black wire goes on the right). Push them in until you hear a "click". The wiring is now seated correctly in the connector.

The next step is to re-attach the connector with the wiring you just installed. In my case, the locking tab seemed loose, so I put a tie wrap around it to hold it in place.

If you disconnected your battery, get up from under the dash and re-attach the cables. Once that's done, turn your key to the "run" position and test your work by working the HVAC control head unit in the dash. Your blower motor should now function correctly for many more miles to come! If, and when, it decides to act up again, you'll be one-up on your car and will be able to have some semblance of air until you're able to work on it again.