Kung Fu Maintenance troubleshoots an air conditioner where the compressor is running but the AC fan motor won’t kick on.
OK. Got an AC down as you can see hear the compressor is running but the fan motor has not started. I am going to try to kick the fan motor on if possible. Nope. Oh lost my pen. That sucks.
AC Compressor Running Fan Motor Won’t Kick On
Alright. Well I will pull the cover off and take a look at what we got going on here. I don’t want to pull the plug because once the compressor overheats that’s it but I am probably going to need to. Take a look. Oh boy. Compressor is running. Compressor’s not too hot so I might get away with it here. Looks like we got a converted. No it looks like a regular cap and capacitor. Hopefully it’s just the capacitor. Change it out and get it going here. I am going to go ahead and pull the disconnect here. OK. Discharge the capacitor. Get both of them. I am going to change the bottom one.
We probably need to secure this capacitor better. Got a video showing that you can check out if you want to. For now I just want to get it going. Get it nice and chilly. He is sitting there boiling. It’s pretty warm. Getting towards the end of the summer but it’s still hot out there. Still hot out here. OK. Pull this out. Fan motor is not kicking on. So we might actually have a bad fan motor here. Hopefully just the capacitor overheated. Maybe just being in the box down there. Not able to shed any heat. So at least for now I will try it out and get it going and than come back.
Wow. That capacitor is hot. OK. So now we will just try it out and see if the fan kicks on. No our fan motor did not kick on so it looks like we got a bad fan motor. First I will look for any burned wiring on the fan. I’ll re pull the disconnect. OK and trace back the wiring here and see if maybe we have just a burned wire. Again have to re discharge the capacitor after we plugged it in. Here is the blue wire. That’s intact. The black wire. OK. Than the brown wire is as it should be.
Aw man. It looks like we got a bad fan. Pull on the wires and see if, if anything. Nope we got a bad fan. Darn it. And it could just be overheated. Most likely not though. OK. Going to go change the fan. Get this going. The good news is I will get to get my pen back.
AC Artwork diagram from the book Kung Fu Maintenance