Blower motor noise/intermittent operation

My blower motor has seemed louder since I had to start running AC this year. Then this afternoon it didn't want to run at all when I got in the truck. I leaned under the dash and smacked the housing and it started working. I came home and pulled the cabin air filter to looking for leaves ect that could be making the noise but there didn't seem to be anything. I did a search and see that it's common for the resistor to go bad and cause intermittent operation, but what about the noise? How hard is it to pull the blower motor and clean it out? Anyone ever had the motor itself go out ?

 

Is it a chirping noise or a different kind of noise?

 

Sounds a little like a playing card in bicycle spokes, with a little squeaking as well.

 

The squeaking may be the typical blower motor noise that happens. There is some write ups on taking care of it on your own. Requires pulling apart and greasing some bearings or something to that effect. Other option is to buy a new blower.

The flapping noise certainly seems like a leaf or something stuck in the blower. Maybe on the bottom side.

 

Could be, I guess I would have to drop the blower motor to really clean it out. Only looks to be three screws but a lot of laying on your back LOL. I also had no idea I had a cabin air filter till I started looking at this problem. It probably needs to be changed after 40k miles

 

I would suggest reading through 1800 posts on how to fix it

A very common problem with the 2nd gen
http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/2nd-gen-tacomas/28355-blower-motor-squeek-chirp-low-fix.html

 

Sounds about right. 30-40k miles.

 

I had the same problem this winter and just bought a new motor and resistor.... took maybe 30mins to replace both!! Spent very little money.. maybe $50 on partstrain or partsgeek.. cant remember. Simple fix!