Heater/AC blower motor replacement unexpectedly solves problems

Hi All,

I hope your holiday season is going fantastically well!

Recently, I need to have the car’s passenger cabin heater/air conditioning blower motor replaced. The 30 year old electric motor simply seized.

When the mechanic replaced the electric motor and its regulator, this solved a number of other electrical issues:
-The driver's instrument cluster left side lights now work again. In short, the fuel gauge and the speedometer were dark at night. My brother and I replaced all of the instrument cluster lightbulbs a few years ago, so I was pretty sure it was not the lightbulbs.
-The electric windows’ control up/down buttons, near the gearshift, now are illuminated.

The lingering electrical problem is:
-The speedometer needle intermittently fluctuates. I think Ferd may have suggested that a connector pin on the instrument cluster might have cracked solder. I have not investigated this yet.

Anyway, if you have thoughts or comments. Please let me know.

Happiest of holidays, Kelly :-)

Kelly,
Good to see you are still driving that cabrio. I have changed the fan on one of my E-30 but have no idea why the connection to any other of the interior lights. Seems like some other gremlin might be involved. The instrument cluster is difficult to remove and replace so I cannot recommend exploratory surgery. One of my cars had a similar speedometer fluctuation and the "speedometer gears" guys said it was sticky gears in the mechanism. Eventually I wound up selling the car so never did get it resolved.

Bob in Lake Havasu