Anybody familiar with this weird crap?('99' Jimmy..same truck as a '99' Blazer)..My blower motor and blower motor resistor lasted me 18 years, but they finally burned out.
Whats with this crumbling plastic housing surrounding the blower motor? It's been crumbly like this for years, I saw it some 10 years ago.
The inner plastic housing right under the crumbly stuff is strong and ok, so what's the purpose of this crumbly shell surrounding the strong shell?
It actually makes it easier to get to the blower motor by just breaking the crumbly stuff away. I don't really see a problem if the crumbly stuff is
totally removed. Anybody dealt with this B-4? (see video)

 

I replaced the blower motor on my 1999 last fall. On mine, this "housing" was pliable, like a stiff rubber outer layer. The installation instructions say to cut this coating around the motor with a utility knife to get access to the mounting screws. And then when the new motor is in, to reinstall the form-fitting rubbery-plastic layer and seal it with a rubber sealant. (It says not to use RTV which I believe back in 1999 was only available in a form that would out-gas corrosive fumes which I assumed would be bad for the electrical bits.)

When I was confronted with it, the best I could come up with was that it served some purpose to isolate the blower motor and HVAC equipment from the environment of the engine compartment, e.g. the moisture and perhaps the cold.


I also had a 'bit' of a problem with tamarack needles plugging up my AC condenser!

 

OK, thank you.. The only thing I can think of is that my housing must have come from a bad batch of material. That sort of thing happens. I'm not going to worry about it, I disconnected the air conditioning years ago when it ran out of freon, and I have no plans to reconnect it.

 

My 02 ZR2 is doing the very same, I can barely touch it without it breaking apart. Am in the middle of LIM gasket replace so have to be careful, don't know how I am going to address this later down the road.

 

My thoughts are that this outer protective(?) layer was added for a reason, I just am not sure what that reason was.

My other thought on its purpose that I forgot to add was that perhaps this sealed layer was intended to stop any possible airflow between the engine compartment and the passenger compartment. If I remember correctly there is no gasket on the flange for the blower motor with this outer layer serving that purpose?

Things I'd want to keep out of my HVAC system that such a sealed layer could keep out would be CO, CO2, and dust.

Of course the scariest one of those is the CO (carbon monoxide) as it is odorless and very dangerous as evidenced by the problems Ford has had with its police-modified Explorers.

 

carbon monoxide Christine?!!... Now you got me paranoid. If you see a blue Jimmy with the driver wearing a gasmask, that's me! I'm going to have to search this further online or maybe just run down to the GM dealer and see if they can solve this. I got enough problems at this point without dying from CO2 poisoning. For the time being, I'll keep my windows rolled down a bit. MonOsteel, you better wrap a towel or plastic trash bag around your brittle housing while replacing that manifold gasket. Don't let those crumbling pieces fall down in there.

 

The pickups don't have that extra layer and I haven't heard of a rash of unexplained deaths of S10 truck owners. Bet it's purpose is noise reduction.

 

The P/U's don't have it? Then it can't serve a safety issue. I bet you are right that it is for noise reduction.

 

The auto climate ones have the rubber that you have to cut off to get to the fan. I had to do the same thing with mine as well.

 

Not a definitive answer, but my impression is it's mostly noise suppressing, and possibly a mild insulation barrier since it shrouds some of those components from additional engine heat. Mine was so crumbly, I couldn't stand the sight of it and cut it all away when I went in to clean leaves out of the blower housing. FWIW, I have since regretted doing that, mostly because I suspect it cost some AC performance, and perhaps some protection from the elements. If I had it to do over, I would be more discriminating and minimalist with my shroud removal. That being said, I haven't succumbed to carbon monoxide poisoning, so I doubt there is any safety concern.