There should be a cabin air filter located near the blower motor. I've never changed one in a dsm and I just swapped my dash out and never thought to change it!

Drop your glove box and take a look around. Blower motors either work or they don't. If it isn't noisy (like a bad bearing) then it's likely a clogged filter or worst case scenario a broken blend door.

1g/2g DSM's don't have cabin air filters. You can remove the motor/cage to see if there are obstructions in there (leaves, mice, etc) or excessive dirt on the fan blades obstructing air flow. However my blower motor never did blow very well even when new from the factory - it's not a Toyota.

luv2rallye said:

You can remove the motor/cage to see if there are obstructions in there (leaves, mice, etc) or excessive dirt on the fan blades obstructing air flow.

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I once found this. Needless to say I wasn't getting much airflow but I think it was the smell that clued me in.

It is also possible that your blend door isn't sealing well, allowing air to he diverted to the floor.

When I took the dash off my 97 last year and pulled all the ducting apart I found that the sponge seals around the doors and ducting had rotted away. Much of the air being pushed by the blower fan was leaking out through these joints. I ended up buying some foam seal at Lowe's and replacing all of the sponge seals.

96WhiteEclipse said:

I’m unsure of my cars blower motor. It blows air and operates at the different speeds but I feel like it could push more air out. I’m not sure if it’s just that new cars are better but no matter what it doesn’t seem to really be pushing as much air as desired. I’ve been having trouble with the AC And Im in need of advice. Is there ways I can test it or should I just replace the part?

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This is a near-universal problem and the fix may be quite a bit of work.

As mentioned above 1g/2g Eclipses do not have cabin air filters. The ventilation system collects dust, insect parts, and fuzz in the evaporator, heater/defroster core, and blower wheel as well as everywhere in between. To do the diagnosis buy a bore scope: These are tiny webcams with lights on the end of a bendable cable: You plug 'em in to a laptop or other device that takes a cam and you can push the thing into any hole and look around in there.

Remove the blower from your heating and A/C system. You'll have to take out the glove box and some structure under there, then unplug the blower motor and remove the three sheet metal screws holding it to the plastic housing and pull it down and out. You can clean it up (if necessary) quite easily. If the blower wheel is damaged -- they get eaten by mice or broken by debris -- replace it. Blower motors last a long time -- maybe 200k miles -- and then they stop. If yours runs there's no need to replace it.

The left side of the blower case opens into the A/C and heater core area. Put your bore scope up in there aiming left and move it around. You should see the right side of the evaporator core and in front of it the brass expansion valve assembly and some piping. The question is how much dirt is stuck in the fins of the evaporator. Look particularly down toward the bottom as it tends to collect down there. The usual answer to 'how much?' is 'Wow -- what a mess!'

Steve's picture beats my worst but only because my mice died before they had fully padded their nest. They had eaten through the blower wheel and settled over in the evaporator box. Yeah, the smell gives it away.

The dirt both restricts the air flow and insulates the coils. This will easily reduce the A/C's 'horsepower' by 3/4. The air coming out may get cold enough but there's so little of it that the car doesn't cool off much.

The problem with cleaning this up is that usually the dirt is stuck on with oily vapor from the engine so you can't just make up a curved vacuum cleaner tool and suck it out. You have to take out the evaporator case which starts with discharging the A/C. The removal job isn't easy because the ears that mount the case are under heavy harnesses and you have to work over your head under the dash. When you've pulled the evap it's easy to disassemble and -- usually -- not too hard to clean. Worst case you replace it with new.

This is a do-able job but it's not fun and it requires recharging the A/C when you're done. Most owners probably would prefer to take it to an A/C repair professional, expecting to pay for about a day's labor plus whatever replacements and supplies are needed. The pro will almost certainly just replace the core -- that's around $100 I think. Otherwise you'd pay him for an hour or two to clean yours and that could easily be over $100.