My blower motor stopped today.  How involved it the replacement? 

Pretty easy...........mine stopped several years ago. Upon dis assembly, found leaves and crud build up that had found its way down to the motor. Cleaned out the mess, and blower motor works just fine.

3 screws hold it in.  Electrical connector.  

 

You will have more access if you drop the glove box, 2 Screws

Remove the Electrical Connector

Remove the 3 screws

Pull it down.

 

If you have a used fan, you can plug in the connector before removing the old one to make sure it's not an electrical issue.

You may not need a new motor. There may be debris blocking the "squirrel cage" fan, or the armature itself. Here is a link to how I fixed it on my '93, not sure how different the '97 would be. 

The problem of the fan failure repeated itself again a few weeks ago. The symptoms consisted of the fan running slower at all speed settings, then a ticking sound like something making contact with a rotating part. Then the fan quit altogether, but would start if I tapped on the base of the fan motor with a wrench. Try tapping on the base of the motor while the fan is turned on. If it starts right up, that might be telling you there's a small physical interference inside the fan or motor, or debris is preventing good electrical current between the armature and brushes.

This time I tried to see if I could remove debris without removing the fan from the car, just by removing the base plate on the motor body. That wasn't enough to work out the debris, so I removed the fan, and tapped on the motor body while rotating the squirrel cage. Powdery brownish debris fell out of the base of the motor. I reinstalled the motor and it ran properly again.

If your car has the OEM motor, it probably has a removable base plate. On the aftermarket motors it looks like there is not a removable base plate.

http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/topic/148465-heater-blower-motor-intermittent-failure-solved-93-legacy/

Edited December 23, 201411 yr by BB's93LegacyL