Project Green Hell: 1995 BMW 325i/4/5 Sport

[D_Eclipse9916]

Personal experience talking here...you need a control arm to drive on track

[Jake]

Personal experience talking here...you need a control arm to drive on track

Haha, yeah, I figured it was a somewhat-critical part to have on the car :lol:

[Jake]

I keep putting miles on this thing, and it's um, fine. Somewhere near 30 mpg highway. Cruise control works, sound system is good, all windows roll down and back up (now that I say that, they'll all catastrophically fail), and the heater is pretty damn good. Oh, what's that you say? Fan speed 2 is the same as 1?

Dis is problem.

See, Speed 1 is akin to warming the car with just body heat. Speed 3 is noisy-wind-tunnel-vortex. Speed 4 is the same as 3, but with more vacuum cleaner sounds. Speed 2 is the Goldilocks of HVAC. And mine didn't work.

Joey was placing a Pelican Parts order (because 3 broken BMWs in one house, lolol) so I had him order a "blower fan resistor" or whatever it's called.

It's this little doodad under the dash that "steps down" the blower fan. Speed 4 is full power, and 1/2/3 are stepped-down, or "resisted" power output. As the doodad ages, the three resistors fail in varying order, until you end up with Off and Hoover ShopVac as your only options.

It's $30, you pull off the panel below the steering wheel and the doodad just pulls out, un-plug/re-plug/shove back in dash. Easy.

Pro tip: the plug above the gas pedal will indeed fit the new blower resistor, but it is not intended for said resistor and may emit a burning smell when the car is turned on for testing. Instead, turn your head to the right of the gas pedal and remove that plug.

It was sure nice having the Goldilocks fan speed this weekend on my roadtrip :thumbup:

[Beej]

Ha! on the blower resister. On my swapped e30, you actually had to pull the intake manifold to get to the little bastard...but at least there was nothing to mistake it for.

But yeah, consider her jinxed. Hope that when your window regulators go, they're up.

[Senor_Taylor]

I keep putting miles on this thing, and it's um, fine. Somewhere near 30 mpg highway. Cruise control works, sound system is good, all windows roll down and back up (now that I say that, they'll all catastrophically fail), and the heater is pretty damn good. Oh, what's that you say? Fan speed 2 is the same as 1?

Dis is problem.

See, Speed 1 is akin to warming the car with just body heat. Speed 3 is noisy-wind-tunnel-vortex. Speed 4 is the same as 3, but with more vacuum cleaner sounds. Speed 2 is the Goldilocks of HVAC. And mine didn't work.

Joey was placing a Pelican Parts order (because 3 broken BMWs in one house, lolol) so I had him order a "blower fan resistor" or whatever it's called.

It's this little doodad under the dash that "steps down" the blower fan. Speed 4 is full power, and 1/2/3 are stepped-down, or "resisted" power output. As the doodad ages, the three resistors fail in varying order, until you end up with Off and Hoover ShopVac as your only options.

It's $30, you pull off the panel below the steering wheel and the doodad just pulls out, un-plug/re-plug/shove back in dash. Easy.

Pro tip: the plug above the gas pedal will indeed fit the new blower resistor, but it is not intended for said resistor and may emit a burning smell when the car is turned on for testing. Instead, turn your head to the right of the gas pedal and remove that plug.

It was sure nice having the Goldilocks fan speed this weekend on my roadtrip :thumbup:

The blower motor is missing? Also all of the vents and the entire HVAC panel is too? What happened!