havacamaro

iTrader: (1)

86 camaro, have replaced the blower, switch, resistor and relay. Blower doesn't work on high, just got the ac working today, would like to finally finish it up and get the blower working all the way haha. Am I missing something stupid?

sofakingdom

iTrader: (1)

Yes, in fact you are; but it's not something stupid on your own part.

Since you've changed out the resistor, you know where the wiring for all that is.

Follow the purple wire from the blower motor to where it goes; a small box, with 3 smaller wires (one of which is from the resistor), the purple one, and a big fat red one. That's the high-speed relay, and the red wire is the one that brings hard battery to the relay, which the relay then bypasses the resistors altogether for high speed and connects the blower feed straight to battery. Follow the big fat red one away from there; it will go across the car toward the driver's side, just under the windshield cowl. About right above the right valve cover you will come to a connector. If you attempt to disconnect it you will find that it is melted together in a blob if not entirely burnt to ashes.



This connector is THE STOOOOOOPIDEST DESIGN EVAH. In addition to being entirely too small for the current it's supposed to carry in the first place, it actually uses the plastic to hold the contact tension, violating EVERY RULE about designing a connector. Being such a giant FAIL as it is, it inevitably burns up.

Cut the red wire from both sides of it (and the black wire too, if your car has that in there, like the one in the pic does). On the red wire, install a pair of the BIG THICK FAT WIDE HEAVY-DUTY yellow slide terminals, preferably insulated. NOT, the little thin narrow weenie yellow ones that are just like the red and blue ones except yellow; find THE BIG THICK FAT WIDE HEAVY-DUTY ones. If you can't find insulated ones, put a piece of thick heavy-duty insulation sleeving over it. Be careful working on them, because they do have HARD BATTERY on them, with only the fusible links protecting them, so you can EAT a bunch of stuff if you let it touch ground and possibly blow the link besides. For the black wires, instead of even using the connector at all, put a ring terminal on the one that goes toward the blower motor, and put it under one of the ground screws on the firewall, such as the one you can see in the pic.

Next, in the interior of the car, take out the control head, and find the "mode" switch. It will have a wire that goes to the fan switch, a green wire that disappears into the dash along with the vacuum lines, and a brown wire that disappears into the dash in a different direction by itself. Follow that brown wire. About a foot or so up into there, you will come to another of the EXACT SAME connector type. This one feeds power to the entire system, and will entirely prevent all HVAC system electrical function when it burns up. Most likely it's pretty much ashes just like the other one and is likely to fail utterly at any moment, since in fact, it usually fails before the high-speed feed one does. Replace it with the same type of slide terminals as above.

havacamaro

iTrader: (1)

thanks for this, I was going to delve into the wiring tonight, this will make it a ton easier.

Hal87

iTrader: (1)

By slide terminals do you mean butt connectors/splices?

sofakingdom

iTrader: (1)

No, I mean slide terminals.

For example https://www.pepboys.com/product/details/8354123/01477

Note that this particular one is .375" wide, instead of the usual little weenie .25" variety.

Definitely NOT butt splices: you may need to be able to disconnect at those points, those being the points at which the major factory harness assemblies join together. The HVAC harness is an entirely separate and discrete piece from the "car" harness under the hood, and from the "dash" harness in the interior.

Hal87

iTrader: (1)

OK, I know them as spade connectors. Thanks

jharrison5

Bingo!

sofakingdom

iTrader: (1)

Bingo which... did you have this problem too? Wouldn't be too surprised: at one particular moment in time there were 7 70s-80s-era GM cars in my immediate family, and 4 of em had it all at the same time.

jharrison5

I have had this issue on multiple GM vehicles. Wish I could have had the resources of this site in 1993 I could have saved my self a lot of headaches!