SL1 Heater/Air Cond not blowing hard?

Tiny
LOVE MY 97 SL1
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  • 1997 SATURN SL1
  • 2WD
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  • 175,000 MILES
Hi all. The vents in my car do not blow as hard as they used to. This has actually happened before. It got to the point where they hardly blew at all, then one night, I heard something, I guess, push its way through whatever it was clogged in within the system, and then, magically, the air blew HARD.

Now I'm back to below maximum airflow. It blows hot, but the cabin takes forever to warm up (or cool down, depending on which season it is). This is especially problematic when my windshield is fogged over, and I need it to clear up.

Low and behold, I opened the hood, and, for the first time ever, noticed the screen on the air inlet hole right above the firewall (or whatever it is called, don't know the technical term for it). Sure enough, it wasn't even completely secured down to the surface of the car. So I'm assuming it wouldn't be too far-fetched to assume that something got in there and is clogging up the system.

So, finally to the point - where should I start in trying to fix this problem? Will I need to take the dash completely off and troubleshoot from there? If I need to do this, can someone link me to a diagram showing how this is done?

Thank you very much in advance for your help with this matter.

Jake
Thursday, January 27th, 2011 AT 7:46 AM

8 Replies

Tiny
SATURNTECH9
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Those screen's are called cowl screen's I would start by dropping the blower motor and see what you can find let's start there before we start tearing thing's apart.
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Thursday, January 27th, 2011 AT 5:25 PM
Tiny
LOVE MY 97 SL1
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Hi. I actually took this out last night before I started this thread. Everything looked normal to me, although I will be the first to admit that I really didn't know what to look for, except whether something was hindering the movement of the fan or not, and nothing was. I read somewhere online to maybe test the voltage of the power going to the motor (if I recall correctly, anywhere from 9-15 volts is normal, and below 9 indicates a problem)? Should I try this? Thanks!
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Thursday, January 27th, 2011 AT 6:28 PM
Tiny
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So does the blower operate in every speed?I figured you already checked to see if the voltage was good sorry about that. Put the fan on high you should have full battery voltage to the blower motor. If your getting 15 volts to the blower motor with the car running and the switch on high then your charging system is over charging. If you check it on high with the car off you should have around 12 volt's.
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Thursday, January 27th, 2011 AT 9:53 PM
Tiny
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Not sure if this is really important or not, but please note that I had the recirculate option OFF while I was testing (and, like you said to do, I tested everything with the blower on the HIGH setting).

With the car ON: 12.9 V

With the car OFF: 11.2 V
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Friday, January 28th, 2011 AT 9:09 PM
Tiny
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Oh, and yes, the blower does operate in every speed. It does get incrementally stronger every time I turn it up a notch. But, like I said before, the highest setting doesn't blow as strong as it potentially can.
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Friday, January 28th, 2011 AT 9:12 PM
Tiny
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The recirulation button on or off won't effect the voltage to the blower motor. Sound's like the voltages are good did you check the voltage with the blower motor plugged in and running?
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Friday, January 28th, 2011 AT 10:22 PM
Tiny
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Yeah, I figured the recirc didn't matter. I just want to be as thorough as possible. Yep the blower was plugged in. Just shaved some of the plastic off of the wires with a razor so I had some metal to test, and put some electric tape over the exposed parts afterward.
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Friday, January 28th, 2011 AT 11:10 PM
Tiny
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You could have used the sharp probe's on the meter to touch the copper wire inside the insulation. So every vent is low flow not just the center one?
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Saturday, January 29th, 2011 AT 4:48 PM

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