Do-It-Yourself Story

After a false start changing the bearing (which was also not turning very freely) I correctly determined that the motor was bad. Unfortunately changing the motor turned out to be a bit of a fiasco. In the video John alludes to possible problems removing the blower housing assembly - I ultimately found it to be impossible. Reverse threading was not the issue, the fan blade simply would not budge despite the fact that I removed the entire motor/blower assembly and tried at my bench. This is a caution. I recognized immediately that you should not use a 12 point 7/8 socket, a 6 point socket is absolutely essential but even that did not work. I ended up buying a new blower housing rather than destroying the old one. Other than that, the repair is not difficult.