You take the bottom one off. Sometimes if you get lucky, there's no control board or traps in front here.

I'm not quite as lucky, so I have a control board over here.

So I'll need to take this out and move it aside, disconnecting as little wires as possible, so I can pull the blower out.

Also, if you have a flexible bit like this to put your drill bits into, that'll really make your life easier.

The ones that you can hold without the outside spinning, you'll see what I'll use that for in a little bit.

You may need to cut off... I don't have my side cutters with me right now.

You may need to cut off some zip ties or break them off to get some of these wires untangled.

Okay, so I got it out this far and I'm gonna see how far I can pull this out. If I can't, I'm gonna have to pull some more wires off, but hopefully I'll be able to pull this whole assembly out without having to take anything else off.

So, to pull this out, there's usually two screws on the top here, and that's where this thing comes in real handy.

Usually 5-16s, it could be 3-8s. Mine is a 5-16s.

If you have a flashlight, just put it in there like that, that'll help.

And that one's actually a 3-8s, not a 5-16s.

Okay.

There's one, and there's the other.

Okay.

And then you slide the whole thing out.

And the whole time you're paying attention to make sure no wires are getting jammed anywhere so you don't rip anything off.

That comes out like such.

Okay.

Once you have this out, you flip it on this side first, and there's a there's a holding screw here that holds the shaft, that holds the blower wheel to the shaft. You loosen that up, counterclockwise of course. You can hold the wheel so it doesn't spin while you're trying to loosen it.

You don't have to take it out all the way, just loosen it. And then you put your wrench on the shaft. There's one of one of the sides has a flat side right there. Put your wrench on there. Make sure you do not use toothed wrenches. If you bite into this, you're gonna have a really hard time trying to take this motor off.

If it's rusted, if it looks really old, put some oil in here or some rust buster. Let it sink in for like a minute, and it'll come off much easier. Sometimes you may have to use a hub puller.

So you hold this in place and you spin the wheel to free up the shaft from the actual wheel. And this spins real free so I shouldn't have a problem taking this wheel off the shaft. Also as you can see, my wheel is really disgusting. See all that stuff in there? That cuts down the efficiency and this is probably one of the reasons why the motor burnt out too.

Look at all that gunk in there. So I'll need to clean that out. In the summer it's awesome you can just wash it out with the hose.

It's winter outside, it's cold, and I have my hose outside shut off.

So I'm probably gonna try to clean it either in the laundry sink or with a brush or something. I'll figure that out in a little bit.

So that's that. Then you flip the thing over.

Once again, be mindful of the wires. Don't yank on them too hard.

You don't want additional problems. And then you got the blower motor itself.

Usually there's three screws holding it. Sometimes the bracket is welded onto the motor. In that case you'll need either a FM55 or an MB55 motor bracket.

You can just cut your motor wires about right here.

You don't want to cut them too far away because you might need to wire nut them.

I usually cut them about this far. That gives me room to wire nut stuff back together. You just cut them all off.

They won't be needed. There.

And these two brown wires, they go to a capacitor.

We'll be putting a new capacitor with the new motor in as well.

So then you take these out.

Take out the three screws.

There you go. That comes right out. Make sure you don't lose them.

And since I loosened up the shaft off the wheel earlier, this should pull right out. And it does. That's awesome. Sometimes it doesn't come out this freely. Most of the brackets you can reuse. If you have one like this, see how it has six holes here? Make sure you remember where you're taking these screws out from.

Unless your new motor is going to be a wider or longer motor, then you're gonna need to either use a different bracket or adjust this accordingly. Okay and then using your model and serial, which usually is somewhere in the furnace on mine. It's right there.

You get your model and serial, your maker, to get a new motor. Make sure your new motor matches the specs of the old one.

So this one is 1 third horsepower, 1075 rpm, four speed. Capacitor doesn't matter.

Motor. And this one, even though it's a three speed, that's all right because you only use one heating speed and one cooling speed and then one on park. Also third horse and it needs a five microfarad capacitor, which I got as well. So we'll be swapping this out with this. So here's that.

There's a new one.

And as you can see, they're about the same exact thing.

The shaft is just a little bit longer, but that's no big deal.

Perfect. So I will be able to use the same bracket and probably the same holes too.

Most of the time you don't need these screws. They just end up in the way.

The ones on top here, just break them off.

You may need them for some applications, but for most furnaces, these screws don't serve any purpose.

Okay. So anyways, we'll set that aside for now and continue disassembling this.

Okay.

So we got the bracket off. Most of them are a one piece, but this one's a two piece. Slide that off. Slide the bottom off.

And they're always dusty, so be prepared to get dirty if you're doing this.

So you plug in the new motor to that same bracket like that.

If possible, keep the specs opened up so they're not covered by the bracket.

If not possible, done. Whatever. Not that big of a deal.

And then you put the bracket back together.

So got the bracket on. I ended up using different holes.

This motor was a little bigger after all. But anyways, one way or another, get the bracket back on and then you would usually put this back in. But before I do that, remember that really dirty blower wheel I mentioned?

We're gonna have to take that out first. And to take that out, see how wobbles around there? Without the shaft in there, this motor is just free to roam around in there. You just take two screws out that are holding this shield plate. One there and one on this side. And they look like they're quarter inch.

Some of them slide out and you can take them out. This one, as you can see, just pops out. I don't want to take the whole thing apart. I'm not interested in that. I'm just after the blower wheel.

It is very sharp so don't go in there real quick and try to pull it out fast and cut your fingers on the blades.

So here's the really dirty wheel. We'll need to get this cleaned up.

Oh look at that. There's like hair sticking out of it.

So as you can see, that's all the stuff that came out of the wheel.

Insanely dirty. And this is not spotless but almost there. I brushed it out first and then we sprayed some degreaser on it and washed it down. Okay then you put the wheel back in and make sure you put the wheel the same way you took it out.

So the shaft is going to be sticking out the same side.

Okay then you screw the plate back in. The wheel once again wobbling all over the place. You flip this back over and we got our new motor with the old bracket on.

We slide that into the hole.

Boom. And then all these wires, you want them facing outwards towards the control board. So in our case we got them right here.

You adjust the bracket probably where the old screw holes are.

This will be great. It'll come out through the bottom and to the control.

We'll deal with the wiring a little bit later. And this thing,

I don't know if your motor is going to have it or not, it's to reverse the direction of the motor which way it's spinning.

So depending on what's going on you might have to reverse it.

And then the ground wire, I mean you probably wouldn't want to put it right here somewhere where by accident it could end up in here. I usually just loop it around maybe even through here.

And attach it on the opposite side either to this screw or in my case I think I'll put it in here.

So that's in. And then don't forget to flip it over.

Adjust the wheel.

If you look in here, you want it if possible wiggle it around to see where it hits. And between those two points if possible put it in between. So about right there.

And then you flip this over. Actually if I'd be you I wouldn't put it on inside because the wheel is just going to flop right back.

And then you line up this holding screw with that flat part of the shaft.

And you screw it back in to hold it in place.

If you forget to do this when your blower motor is on, you can just put it on the other side.

If you forget to do this when your blower motor comes on you're just gonna hear a bunch of rattling.

Once you have that in, give it a spin for a good measure.

A bunch of dust flies out. That looks good.

There's the capacitor.

You don't want to use the old one even if it's good.

New motor should come with a new capacitor.

So we'll take this one out.

We'll definitely reuse the same bracket.

Okay, throw that away. Put the new one in.

And then if you want you can hook up the two brown wires from the motor up to the capacitor right away.

Like that.

Like that. Good. And then you can slide the motor back in.

When you're putting it back in, if you don't do this too often this could be difficult. If you look in there, there's those lips.

So you got to get both edges onto the first lip.

There's one of those on each side.

I usually stick a flashlight in there so I see what's going on.

And try to aim it.

Once you got the corners into the first lip, you lift it up flush with the top and you just push it all the way back in.

If it's refusing to go just wiggle it until it goes in.

And then you just stick your head in and make sure the holes are lining up with the screw holes. And you put those screws back in.

So after you got the two holding screws in to hold the casing of the blower motor, put your control board in.

And any of the wiring that you took off, put it back on.

This one has two clips on top and you gotta get them in just right. Right over here. Got clip one and clip two which is kind of nice. Which helps you aim the two screw holes just right.

So you got the board back in, all the wires in.

Then for the wiring, since I'm changing out a four speed with the three speed, as you can see I don't have a yellow on the new one.

I just have the blue, the red, the black and the white.

So the yellow you can just unplug from here.

And discard. And the rest of them you strip them and wire them up together, color for color.

And that is it. We got them all wire tied together.

And if you'd like you could get a zip tie or just use electrical tape and just tidy it up a little bit so there's no loose wires flopping around.

I'll do that a little bit later. And that's how you replace a blower motor folks. If you have any questions let me know in the comments below.