When Your RV AC Goes Boom – How To Replace A Coleman Mach Blower Wheel
When you hear a boom in the middle of the night and are woken from a sound sleep in your RV, what could it be?
This recently happened to us, and it turned out to be a busted Blower Wheel in our main Coleman Mach 8 RV air conditioning unit. Let us show you what happened in the following video, then read on for more!
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How We Lost Our AC
RV AC units have two fans. One is on the outside to move air through the heat exchanger. This is the one you can hear from the outside when your AC is running. You can usually see it inside your AC unit without taking anything apart.
The second fan is inside your ducting. This is the one that pushes air through the vents in your RV. It looks different from the external fan because it’s designed to channel air in one direction (into the ducting.) These types of fans are called blowers. Blowers are usually very reliable, but for some reason this one is famous for cracking, coming apart, and making a lot of noise when it does!
This Has Happened Before
About a year and half before this particular incident we had one go boom in the night while visiting family. It was so loud that one of our family members thought someone had set off a firework. Since we had already had it happen once, it was pretty easy to diagnose without even opening our AC up to look inside.
How To Replace A Coleman Mach Blower Wheel
We have 2 Coleman Mach 8 AC units. We’ve heard that this can be a problem in many of the other versions of these same AC’s. Thankfully, if you have a spare blower wheel on hand, swapping one out is pretty easy:
- Use a #2 Phillips-Head screwdriver to remove the 4 bolts that hold the main AC cover on.
- Remove cover.
- Use a 3/8″ wrench or socket to remove the 4 nuts holding down the next (gray) cover and slide it off.
- Pull off the black, cylindrical cover around the blower wheel (no tools required.)
- Slide out the black plastic ring near the end of the blower wheel.
- Use a T25 Torx bit to unscrew the screw holding the blower wheel on (on ours, this screw also had a slot for a regular flat head screwdriver.)
- Pull blower wheel off of the motor. You may need to gently persuade it with a hammer.
- Slide on new blower wheel and reassemble.
Parts List To Replace A Coleman Mach Blower Wheel
Now we know how important it is to have a spare blower wheel! If you have the same AC as we do, you can get a spare of the following:
- Coleman Mach Blower Wheel: https://amzn.to/3EHbd0e
We hope this never happens to you, but if it inevitably does, you’ll now be more prepared to recognize what happened and make the repair!
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If you’d like to read about our RV and other RV adventures, then check out some of our other posts :
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- Flexible VS Rigid Solar Panels
- Soft Starters For Your RV AC, Why?
- Portable RV Waste Tank, Freshwater Tank and Pumps
- RV Tank Sensors Not Working? We Use An RV Water Flow Meter Instead!
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