Thought that would get everyone's attention

I have a 91 Camaro RS V8 305. Apologies in advance for the length of this message, but I wanted to include as many details possible. A couple weeks ago my blower motor stopped working, and it's been hell trying to figure out what the problem is in this FL heat. I have read many a thread on this site regarding blower motor issues, but I think my problem is a bit unique...

A few weeks ago I began experiencing issues with the blower not always kicking on after I started the car. But usually by the next time I started it, the blower would work again. Finally, it stopped working period.
(Incidentally, my starter went last week as well. Not sure if that was a coincidence, but the thought crossed my mind that there could be an electrical problem somewhere. But the starter was "clicking" some time before that, so I really do think it was bad).

Anyway, I tested voltage at the blower cable (purple wire) and had about 10v with the car not running on a lower fan speed (testing on high speed got me 0v for some reason). I bought another blower but that one didn't work either. So I ran two wires from the original blower connector prongs directly to the battery terminals, and it kicked right on!

I checked voltage at the blower relay and that was OK, but I swapped the relay with the one at the fuel pump just to make sure it wasn't bad, but got nothing. Checked voltage at the resistor harness on all low fan speeds, and that was OK. I replaced the resistor just for the hell of it, but still got nothing.

A lot of folks on here mentioned something about the large plastic connector by the blower motor being a piece of junk, and it did seem to look somewhat melted to me around the wires, but I can't tell wether that is electrical grease or melted plastic. However, when I unplug it the radiator fan stops working, so I guess the connection works to an extent? But I only get voltage from two of those prongs (the two in the center)... am I supposed to get voltage from all four?

I took the dash apart and checked the connector at the blower switch. Interestingly enough, the bottom left connector (there are 5 total) looked like it melted the plastic around it, as if it got too hot. So I took all the wires out of the connector harness and re-did the one that looked bad, and connected them directly to the blades on the fan switch instead. Still nothing, and I wasn't getting voltage at any of the connectors either. I replaced the fan switch just in case, but still nothing. Also checked the blower connector harness behind the AC unit, and everything looked good there as well. However, I'm not getting voltage there either.

Let's see what else...I also checked the ground behind the engine, and that looked OK. And of course I have checked all the fuses. Someone mentioned fusible links, but I'm not sure how to check those. I did have problems with the junction block before (car wouldn't start), but I unscrewed everything, cleaned up the connections, and it seems to have worked fine since then.

Oh, by the way I found that the ground wire on the blower cable was reading 0.07v so I traced that along the harness under the windshield and found that it was connected to 2 other grounds with a metal clasp: the relay, and that crappy connector, for a total of 3 ground wires. Then a wire coming from the dash was soldered on top of that, but looked a bit corroded and frayed, so I cut all the connections off, stripped them fresh and used a nice fat cap connector instead. When that was disconnected the radiator fan wouldn't work.

I think that's all I can say for now. Hope that was enough info for someone to help. Much appreciation.

 

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Update: I cut off and replaced the crappy connector but nothing changed. Also thought this was weird - I tested the blower motor with a test light instead and got no light. However, with a voltmeter set to DC I get about 10v with the AC turned on.

 

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I FIGURED OUT THE PROBLEM!

After all the troubleshooting I did under the hood, I figured that it must be something to do with the A/C unit in the dash. I took a chance and bought a used one on eBay...

The problem was the brown connector on top of the unit (a wiring harness plugs onto this). I opened it up and alas, there was a nice burn mark on the inside. All I did was swap this piece form the new unit onto my current one and the blower turns on/off and switches from lo to hi as expected.

Thank God!