Noisy blower, no air flow

[fsds123]

The furnace blower in my attic quite blowing this afternoon. I took the front covers off, and can spin the blower by hand freely, and the capacitor kicks the blower on, but it gets somewhat noisy after about 5 seconds of spinning. There is no airflow coming out of the ducts.

From inside the house the blower doesn't sound noisy...actually less noise than normal since it isn't spinning as fast. Any chance at all it is just the capacitor? Probably no such luck?

Would it be just the motor..or are there seperate bearings?
(haven't had time to look closely...blower looks like it has to come out through the front, not the top) How difficult is this?

This is on a 10 year old system in Houston, so the a/c is on almost all the time.

I'll try and get more details tomorrow...i.e. brand and such.

Thanks for any suggestions.

[HayZee518]

blower is probably a squirrel cage design mounted on a 1/3rd horsepower motor. some motors have oil holes some do not. if yours has oil holes add a couple of drops of a light machine oil, let the wicking inside soak it up - then put one drop on the shaft near the bearing and start her up. the rotary motion will start wicking the oil out of the felt inside the bearing to keep it lubricated.

[fsds123]

I replaced the capacitor, but no change. So I guess it's the motor. It is a squirrel cage (on it's side) design like you said, and the unit is a Carrier. Does it come out through the front panel? If so it's hard to get to, and I'd have to remove a hot air pipe, but it looks doable. Or should I be taking the top panel off, which has sealant and a lot of screws holding other things on underneath by the furnace.

[HayZee518]

you shouldn't have to dis-assemble the whole plenum and part of the trunk line to get at the motor. I'm visualizing it's somewhere where the return filter is located.