1993 Chevrolet Caprice Blower Control & Wiring Repair

Just another one of the joys of owning a (nearly) 20 year old car, and dealing with underengineered parts.

I'd welcome an explanation from anyone in the automotive design industry as to why high power is routed through most all of the switches and why resistor packs are so commonly used to slow a single speed motor (thus wasting a lot of power as heat). It would seem more sensible (though perhaps more expensive) to use relays and a multi-tap motor. A relay and direct-from-the-battery line are used when the fan goes to its highest speed. Maybe I answered my own question and it really does all boil down to cost..."this is what happens when accountants build a car".

While I am not totally convinced that all of the connection problems are fixed, I can believe that this switch just runs warm due to under-engineering. I've seen it done too many times before. I have tried to mitigate any recurring problems by applying anti-oxidation paste to every electrical connection in the climate control head. Later I will inspect and do the same for the blower motor and resistor pack. I did note that with my hotwiring in place, nothing other than the fan speed switch ever became warm or hot, and I did not have the best of connections. (The fan speed switch only ever got slightly warm.)

My apologies for not capturing footage of the soldering process. I don't have enough hands, it was a pain in the rear to do and I was not in the best mood at that point. If you want to learn to solder, there are some very good tutorials online that any popular search engine will find.

I am entertaining thoughts of seriously reworking this system by routing only low power through the climate control head and using it to switch relays that handle the high power fan. I saved a bunch of nice high power relays from the Old Cold Forgotten Buick to do this.

I got the new old stock switch from a seller in Canada. This further reinforces my belief that Canada is a pretty neat place.

Tags: 1993 Chevrolet Caprice station wagon "Chevrolet Caprice (Automobile Model)" climate control burnt burned wiring faulty failure fan motor repair uxwbill