How do you replace the heater motor in a 98 Chevy Tahoe?

Answer 1

remove the glovebox door and remove rubber noise cover and you will see the blower motor 7mm socket i believe easy job good luck............timmerhammer

Feb 6, 2007: OK, timmerhammer. I just found this FAQ before I did the job. You're generally close. Here's what I encountered last night on my '98 Tahoe:

The glove box wouldn't come out right away until I slid my hand up behind everything and released a plastic strap along the driver's side edge of the glove box, that was hooked to the steel cross bar (Dash frame). Then you flex the passenger-side of the glove box inboard to get past the stop bumper. It will then tip out easy, and maybe even fall to the floor.

Next was the tread plate at the bottom of the door opening. Have to remove the forward-most screw so that the side trim by the right-side of your feet will be able to come out.

The "rubber noise cover" won't come out until you disconnect the electrical wires: purple for hot and black for ground. Then, you have to wiggle and tug that bad boy down behind the dash frame member and hopefully get it out. Good luck getting it back in when you're done. I left it out as the new fan doesn't make enough noise to be a problem anyway.

Now for the fan bolts. Mine were 5.5mm. No, not 6mm, not 7mm and not 5mm. 5.5mm! Luckily, I have a socket set with that size.(GM Goodwrench brand) Ah, but what about the bolts at 12 o'clock and 2 o'clock? Yes, those were tricky because the heater system was installed before the dash board was installed and that steel frame bar covers part of the motor housing.(Stupid engineers. They never put in one day in the repair field before some idiot lets them design stuff for production!) So, I went to the store and bought a thumb wheel ratchet and installed my 1/4" drive 5.5mm socket on it and took those two bolts out with relative ease.(No, not much room for a universal joint attachment, I already tried that.)

There's some wiggling and finessing to be done to get the old motor out, but it's possible. The new motor needs to have its gasket aligned and installed, plus the metal sleeves that the motor bolts pass through need to be transfered from the old motor to the new one. Don't forget the ground lug. One screw takes it off. Installs in the same position on the new motor. Mine came with a squirrel cage already attached, so I could skip exchanging it. The new motor went in and bolted in place just fine.

Hook up the electrical leads now only if you plan to leave off the noise cover. If not, then have fun wiggling that bad boy back in place. Honestly, when you're sitting in the truck and you look down, you might see the bottom bolts for the motor, but it's black and it blends in nicely anyways. Turn the key on and try the fan motor before you button everything up. If you misaligned the motor or squirrel cage, you'll know it by the sound. Mine was smooth.(lucky me) Finish putting everything else back in place and you're done. My noise cover is going in the trash (It's a truck: deal with it!) along with the old motor (no core charge).

It's below zero here in the mornings and I need my heat!

Hope this helped!

RICKusmc Feb-6-2007 (Michigan)