450SLC gets a new blower

I’ve had issues with the blower on the 450SLC for a few years now.   I would get all sorts of noise and irregular operation from it.     Unlike in some models, the blower is actually pretty easy to get to in the 450SLC, but the problem was new blowers were very expensive (I was seeing them for over $1,200) and used units generally had the same problem I had.

A couple of years ago, I purchased a new motor assembly and fitted it to my existing blower housing, fan cages, capacitor block etc.   This got rid of the irregular operation, but not the noise as periodically I would need to remove the blower and adjust the fit of the motor inside the housing – the housing was cracked and the motor just didn’t sit right.

A couple of weeks ago I spotted a brand new OE W107 blower for sale on US ebay for $200 and pounced on it.   At the same time I also got a new gasket and blower cover as my cover was cracked too.

I fitted the new blower today and so far so good – I am missing one screw for the cover so I’ll need to follow up with that later.   All I had to re-use was the old capacitor block and power cable.

To change the blower, the cover just comes off with phillips head screws, the capacitor block comes off with another two phillips head screws and the blower is held down with 11mm nuts.

The W107 blower motor cover has a plastic piece to protect the capacitor block.   It is broken off on most cars.