Burning smell - new resistor

[conman]

Hey guys, my heater resistor packed in and fan was only working on number 4. This only happened the other night so ordered a new one and it came today. Put it in and fan now working fine but after driving for about 5 mins there was an awful burning smell so I dropped the resistor out and it is really hot, is this normal for a new resistor and does it settle down or am I looking at a faulty one?

Cheers

[Big Dave]

Have you checked to see if the fan spins freely or is stiff to turn?

If the latter, it will put extra loading on the resistor - prob the reason why the 1st one died.

[conman]

I had problems with my old fan being too noisy so this is a new fan fitted and was working fine up until the other night but then the resistor blew. So fitted the new one today and fan is working fine but resistor is really hot and fan is free. I was thinking that maybe a new resistor needed to burn in or something.

[conman]

I've ordered the genuine resistor pack for it to see if that makes a difference instead of the cheaper compatible part. I went for a bit of a drive with the heater on number 1 as I think this puts the resistor under the most pressure and the smell has died down a bit but something tells me the resistor ain't very good quality but I'll use it until the other one arrives just to see if it will blow or not or if the smell disappears.

[MiniVauxhall]

Maybe a bit of a stupid , did you buy a cheaper one? If so you have to cut out notches for it to fit in the holder correctly as they are normally in the wrong place. I brought a cheap one and have had no trouble with it apart from the above.

[conman]

Maybe a bit of a stupid , did you buy a cheaper one? If so you have to cut out notches for it to fit in the holder correctly as they are normally in the wrong place. I brought a cheap one and have had no trouble with it apart from the above.

Yeah mate, I had to cut the notches out of mine as well to get it to fit. I took it out altogether as it was really sticking the car up bad plus it was starting to crack all round with the intense heat (as seen in the picture) I emailed the guy and he said to bin it and he will send a new one but I have ordered a genuine Valeo one and will use the other one for a spare. I might cut off the thermal fuse and solder it on my old one just to see if it works, I just hope it doesn't start doing the same thing with the genuine one or I'll be having bigger problems than I thought.

[conman]

I took out the blower and seems there was a bit of friction in the motor itself so took it apart and gave it a good clean and greased it up and put in a new resistor, well I say new, I ended up using the thermal fuse off the one I bought and soldered it onto the old pack and works a treat
Seems as though the air con cleaner I used has caused the motor to pull a bit as this is the only thing I can thing off that put stress on the resistor. I'll stick to the air con bombs from now on instead of the spray foam types, definitely not a good idea. Anyways, blower is running fine with no burning smell, the resistor is still pretty hot but I think this is normal. I'll be driving about 100 miles tonight so if it's gonna pop I guess this is when it will happen.

[Croxley]

When mine went, which was about 3-4 years ago the fan was making squeaking noises. I sprayed some lubricant on the top bearing but it didn't make any difference. Rather than taking the whole thing out I vey carefully drilled two 4mm holes near the bottom of the plastic fan housing. I then used a bearing spray lubricant (rather then WD40)
Bearing spray is excellent as the propellant evaporates leaving the grease. It got rid of the noise and has been fine ever since.

[conman]

I drove 124 miles tonight and no problems so far. Fan working on all 1-4 hot or cold with no burning smell. I think I might just drive for a week or so before putting in the good Valeo resistor, don't want to end up blowing the good one because of a bad motor and if there are no problems then I'll stick in the good stuff. The soldered one I'm using is a temp fix, especially as the solder will break down and melt at 186C and the thermal fuse is 250C so the fuse will end up falling off leaving it useless anyway, either that or attach the fuse with a couple of terminal connectors. I'll just stick it out for a week and see how she goes, worse case scenario is another blower motor only this time I'll get a new one instead of second hand although if it wasn't for that aircon cleaner I don't think I would have had any problems.