Aircon - Outboard Radiator Fan Seized ?

[wixer]

Morning,
I removed the wheel arch liners from the front of my car yesterday, as part of the winter chassis re-fresh I'm doing and the offside condenser fan doesn't spin freely, in fact it seems seized. Can anyone confirm that it should or should not rotate freely, when switched off ?

Cheers
Wix

[Kaz-kzukNA1]

Hi, Wix.

It should spin freely so I'm afraid your motor has seized.
Due to the position of the condenser fan, if you don't use a/c regularly or left the fuse blown for months, rust can build up inside the motor housing.

If it seized, you are very likely to have blown the fuse inside the pentagonal fuse box under the bonnet/hood. 10A rated, one each for R & L condenser fan.
You can replace the fuse but if your motor is already seized, it will blow again immediately when you activate the a/c compressor.

Even with the healthy condenser fan motor, one can blew this fuse easily so I check regularly on whether the condenser fans are operating or not throughout the year.

New OEM motor is not cheap so if doing DIY, you may be able to repair it by opening the motor if you caught the issue early enough. It’s from Mitsuba so internal components are of high quality.

If not driving regularly, the same issue could happen again or it could happen at the other side so probably best sourcing the used one first.
Try contacting Christian at ATR. You can contact him through the vendor section. He may have used one.

You may find replacement aftermarket motor from Four Seasons but I read somewhere (Prime???) that it didn’t fit despite it being stated as compatible for NSX.




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By the way, replacing the motor from wheel arch is not an easy task.
Can be done but if the nut and the long bolt shaft for the fan shroud are already corroded, you will have big time….


Kaz

[wixer]

Thanks again Kaz. So another thing I need to fix due to seizures. Air-con doesn't work on my car, so this would probably explain why the fans have seized, through lack of use. Sounds a like I'll have to break the whole system down to fix/replace the motor but I'm not too worried about that.

Cheers

Wix

[britlude]

i had one sieze on my car not long ago... the manual say remove the bumper, but you can do it without removing the bumper, going in thru the wheels arch, but it is a pain with some dexterity required to get the rad mounting bracket off to give enough room to wiggle everything out. this also means you don't have to drain/refill the air con system!

with mine, it was corrosion inside the motor has resulted in small bits of rust lifting off and jamming between the rotor and magnets. cleaning, a liberal dose of anti-rust fluid, and a bit of oiling and all is well again.

the pain is, from Kaz's pic above, that the motor loads into its cradle from the aircon radiator side, so the cradle has to be removed from the rad housing to get the motor out. had it loaded from the 'outside' it'll be a far quicker repair! the cradle also doubles as the radiator housing, with 4 long screws mentioned by Kaz, holding the whole shebang together.... the nuts are on the front side, a pain to get spanners on to, especially when reassembling!!

the motor endcap has 3 crimps, once it's off it's simple enough to get into the motor...

in short, it can be done through the wheel arch and the air intake in front of the AC rads, but it is fiddly!

https://storage.googleapis.com/pfk-megabucket-730/HPL/Images_car/17SL001/IMGE/B__5800.jpg



even with the fans siezed, the aircon (if the rest of the system is ok) will work when the car is driving, when the air is moving through the rads naturally. the fans are more there to keep the aircon cold in traffic


found it, post 205 http://www.nsxcb.co.uk/showthread.php?10150-Britludes-NSX-story&p=120220

[wixer]

Thanks for the pointers Jonathan. My front bumper will be coming off in a few weeks anyway, as part of the underfloor/chassis winter refresh, so access to it will be easier.

In all the work you've done on yours, how have you dealt with the steel bolts seizing to the various aluminium components ?

Wix

[britlude]

fortunately had no issues (touch wood!)

if they are the proper/original honda bolts, they have a special coating (the green colour on some bolts) to stop the aluminium and steel interacting.....