Seat Fan Vibration (1 Viewer)

[JustSomeSheep]

Hello! Just got a 2013 cruiser, lucky for me it has almost no issues except for one weird one in the drivers seat...

Wondering if anyone's experienced before:
Only on full blast for the drivers side seat butt fan there's a loud humming noise and vibration. One click down? Goes away. In fact, when I had the car in accessory after sitting overnight (I.E voltage lower than 14V), it settled down a bit. Passenger seat is perfect, no issues. When I say it's loud I mean think phone buzzing on a table. Very irritating.

Things I've tried:
Vacuumed out the seat pores, did a search and found something on a filter on the fan, I'll be pulling that off tonight.
I shoved my hand under the seat and can feel the fan module vibrating like... well, insert your choice of vibrating electronic device.

Any ideas?

 

[Sandroad]

If you can't fix it, at least make it worse

 

[JustSomeSheep]

Sitrep
The fan blades are pretty sharp

 

[KLF]

It's actually easier to get under there than you'd think. Pop off the 4 plastic covers on the feet, pull the bolts, then adjust the seat all the way back with the seat back tilted as far forward as it will go, then gently roll the entire seat towards the back of the truck. The harnesses are long enough. Then you can see everything.

If you want to disconnect the harnesses and actually remove the seat for more surgery, disconnect the battery and wait several minutes for the SRS system to go dead. Anything with yellow loom on it is airbag wiring, so be careful.

 

[JustSomeSheep]

Thanks for the tip , looks like the fan is out of balance, I got it loose and it honestly feels like a cellphone going off it shakes so badly. So weird.
Who knows it might have been like this from day one.

 

[JustSomeSheep]

New fan is ordered, eta to dealership 5/10. Only cost a kidney.

 

[bloc]

Did you get a look at the blades to see whether something broke or maybe a balancing weight came off? I’d guess the filter should effectively keep something from getting lodged in there..

 

[JustSomeSheep]

Filter was immaculate. Blades looked ok at first glance but the new fan gets here today, when the old one comes out I'm going to poke it thoroughly with a stick

 

[speyrod]

At least you can feel yours. I can feel the air suction into the fan, can't hear or feel output from either fan.

 

[LoveHateToyota]

Mine makes that noise too. But only with me sitting in the seat. Ventilation off. And after a big lunch... Sounds more like someone stepping on a duck actually.

 

[JustSomeSheep]

Ok, new butt fan fixed it. THAT SAID I found something interesting. The old fan didn’t really vibrate when free spinning, but if I blocked the outlets it started to shimmy a bit. Makes me think there’s undue load on the fan inside the seat.

So
I took my shop vac, vacuumed the perforated portion of the seat first, then hooked it up to the hoses leading into the seat underneath. I got much s u c c through the seat holes.

Put it all back together not only is it dead silent again, it’s also much cooler (nothing like an Audi mind but even better than my passenger seat.) I think I’m going to try the reverse succ method on the other side too.

Tl;dr I think the filter might be sub par and still pump dust into the seat, if you’re having bad flow try vacuuming your seat vents top and bottom through the ducting.

Next steps: I’m going to try and cut a better filter for the fan and see if it picks anything up. I also want to see if I can get my hands on one of the air distribution sacks to see if there’s anyway to modify it to reduce back pressure, or see how easily it could be clogged.

 

[Sac Cerevisiae]

Ok, new butt fan fixed it. THAT SAID I found something interesting. The old fan didn’t really vibrate when free spinning, but if I blocked the outlets it started to shimmy a bit. Makes me think there’s undue load on the fan inside the seat.

So
I took my shop vac, vacuumed the perforated portion of the seat first, then hooked it up to the hoses leading into the seat underneath. I got much s u c c through the seat holes.

Put it all back together not only is it dead silent again, it’s also much cooler (nothing like an Audi mind but even better than my passenger seat.) I think I’m going to try the reverse succ method on the other side too.

Tl;dr I think the filter might be sub par and still pump dust into the seat, if you’re having bad flow try vacuuming your seat vents top and bottom through the ducting.

Next steps: I’m going to try and cut a better filter for the fan and see if it picks anything up. I also want to see if I can get my hands on one of the air distribution sacks to see if there’s anyway to modify it to reduce back pressure, or see how easily it could be clogged.

Do you have a picture of the venting?

 

[JustSomeSheep]

Full disclosure, I stole these pictures and drew on them from the excellent write up umarali did back in 2015, they totally removed the seat and disconnected the harnesses which made the visibility way better than what I had. My pictures came out poorly. I wanted to test the fans so I did everything as wired as I could, just flipped up for access as per KLF’s suggestion above.

I also did not remove the back of the seat, I have an arrow in the image of the seat back where I shoved my vacuum nozzle with the seat back in place. It would probably be easier to go from the hose where it attaches to the motor, but the new fan came with the hose attached and I wanted to disturb it as little as I could. When I do the passenger side I’m going to pop it off at the motor for sure. (Pic of the motor assemblies also attached) I used a pic to pry the flexible hose (it’s a stiff rubber vs a plastic) off the duct. This seems easier to me than removing the back of the seat but I may be wrong, I was keeping disassembly to a minimum.

For the seat bottom unfortunately I doubt there’s a way to get it vacuumed out without removing the fan. In the image of the void where the fan sits I drew an arrow of the bottom vent hose. It’s extremely short.

For fan removal, the aforementioned write up is what I followed, I was able to get the fan out without unplugging any harnesses (except the fan connection itself) Being careful to not disturb yellow wires.

 

[bloc]

Thanks for posting.. I like the idea of reversing flow and vacuuming everything out. What kind of vacuum did you use? Seems like if you use a shop vac with too much flow or power it might just collapse the air distribution sack.. depending on how it's constructed. Not so much damage it, but seal itself off keeping the vacuum from removing stuff in the outer edges of it.


One other thing I thought of.. someone else posted that they bought dental brushes on amazon to clean out the holes themselves.

Amazon product ASIN B00H2ZCWXY
There are a lot of holes... but I guess if you seal the vacuum to the piping you could sit there and go quickly in a grid pattern and maybe free up more flow.

Edit: just tried to find the distribution sack on my parts program.. no joy. Did find the heater. Seems maybe the dist sack is built into the foam cushion. Maybe Beno or CDan can help.

 

[JustSomeSheep]

Thanks for posting.. I like the idea of reversing flow and vacuuming everything out. What kind of vacuum did you use? Seems like if you use a shop vac with too much flow or power it might just collapse the air distribution sack.. depending on how it's constructed. Not so much damage it, but seal itself off keeping the vacuum from removing stuff in the outer edges of it.


One other thing I thought of.. someone else posted that they bought dental brushes on amazon to clean out the holes themselves.

Amazon product ASIN B00H2ZCWXY
There are a lot of holes... but I guess if you seal the vacuum to the piping you could sit there and go quickly in a grid pattern and maybe free up more flow.

Edit: just tried to find the distribution sack on my parts program.. no joy. Did find the heater. Seems maybe the dist sack is built into the foam cushion. Maybe Beno or CDan can help.

I cheated a bit, I have a Fein Turbo 2 shop vac with variable suction, I started low and ramped up, and at every power level I gave the cushion a smack or two to dislodge anything that was there.

Upside though even on maximum suction the flow felt uniform across the cushion. Whatever the cushion is made of seemed to hold up. I suppose if it's designed to hold human weight it'd be pretty sturdy.

I'd love to get my hands on that sack (phrasing), if it's dense like it looks from the top, I imagine vacuuming with a bristled vacuum attachment should dislodge anything ground in before sucking it out. If it's really a through hole then no way but to clean them out individually I suppose.