The out door fan motor is bad. it has three wires the new one has four, a black one a white one and two brown how do i wire up the cap.

It sounds like you have replaced the fan motor. If so and it has 2 brown wires, you need to use a separate cap for it. (Commonly a 5 mfd/370~440 volt) There's a way to make it work with the original 3 terminal cap, but you really need to understand the process. Simply buying the correct fan cap, and using the 3 terminal cap for the compressor would be the easiest way to do this. On many condensing units, the yellow wire is the start wire, and connects to the "Herm" terminal of the cap.

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The brown and brown/white go to the cap. The Black is hot, L1 and White is L2. The yellw and purple wire are for the rotation, cw, or ccw of the motor.

What is the model number of the heat pump? What is the voltage that you are dealing with?

Hi, the new motor takes its own capacitor to run it. This is what the 2- brown wires are for, one will have a white stripe. You will need to but a seperate run capacitor for this motor, a 5 uf, 7.5, or what ever it calls for. they should have told you when you bought the motor. It will have to spade connectors on it where the brown wires connect alone. Use the dual capacitor if that is what you have for the other 220 volt wires.Black and purple will be your 2 hot wires.You can connect either one to the old capacitor on the fan terminal and the other to the load side of the contactor, so when the contactor closes it will energize the motor.Or, take both the black and the purple wires and to the load side ( outlet side ) of the contactor, connect one to one side and the other to the other side. The line side is where your 2 hot wires that connect to the contactor from the incoming wires from the electrical box, you want to be on the other end. I would connect the black to the contactor load side and purple to the old capacitor as long as the old wiring is still on it as it has to be fed by a hot wire from the contactor. Each wire, blk, and purple has to have 120 volts to each one and you can get this a couple of ways. The contactor has several terminals that are not used and if you wire them on the outlet side, they will only be energized when the contactor is closed on a call from the stat, very easy to do. You will have to get a coulple of crimp on connectors to put on the ends of the wires, but the brown ones should already have them for this capacitor. Do not try to put the brown wires on the old run capacitor as you will burn out the new motor! Go get the small run cap for these 2 wires for about $10. I know that you can do this wiring change just remember the blk is hot 120, and purple is hot 120, = 240.volts. If you have removed all of the wires from the old capacitor, then use the contactor to connect to. The compressor wires must stay on the old run cap on the hermetic side and this old cap. must be fed by a hot wire from the contactor to the common terminal, that is marked with a C..If you look at the new motor diagram, it will show you also. Please dont forget to rate me as I know you will be kind, and I will check in on you to see how you are doing. Get this capacitor and it will run. This is a must!! Please keep me posted.
Sincerely,
Shastalaker7
A/C, Heating, & Refrigeration Contractor

Hi, the 2 - brown wires are for there own run capacitor they should have sold you. One of the browns will have a white stripe. The new cap has only 2- terminals and you put a brown on each side. The black and yellow wires are both hot which 1- will go to 120 volts on the load or out side of the contactor, and the same with yellow, 120 volts. This gives you 220 volts to run the motor. Look on the new motor and you will have a diagram or on a paper that comes in the box. The old motor used the dual cap to run the compressor to. The green is just a ground wire. Screw it to any metal part or screw. You should be able to put the black and yellow hot wires where the old black, red, or blue were as long as they are 120 volts which I am sure they are. Get a cheap tester when you go get the cap for the new motor, and check the old blk, red, and blue terminals to ground and you should have 120 volts on at least 2 of them. Put the new yellow to 1 and black to another, browns to the new cap and your off and running. Keep me posted. I do this everyday. Please be kind when rating me, thank you.
Shastalaker7
A/C, Heating Contractor

Hi, this is a different wiring diagram then what you have . The 2 brown/wht wires are for the run cap only. Black and white are t-1 and t-2. They sold you a motor that takes its own run capacitor to run it with just both brown wires. Take the diagram from the new motor back along with your original. They will give you the right run cap to go with this motor. Yes, the red wire is power to fire your existing cap and old motor. You will need another cap to run this motor. Don't put the 2 brn/white striped wires on the old cap! They have to be alone on there own run cap. Go back to the parts house and they will show you very fast the wiring diagram and give you the cap. This is a very easy fix when they give you what you need. Keep me posted and ask them to give you what you need to run the motor. A 5 uf run cap perhaps?
Keep me posted.
Shastalaker7

Your old moter had three wires. Common High and brown for capacitor. This one sounds like a two speed. Dont worry Now you have two brown wires for you capacitor instead of one. Tape off brown wire with white strip. Connect other brown to cap. You should have a white or yellow for common wire and black for high. Tape of the other extra wire and wire in like the three wire. Rusty

2 brown wires go to a split capacitor if you have a dual cap which has three terminals marked comp fan com if u have this type of capacitor then the brown wire goes to fan and the brown and white gets capped with a wire nut. whenever replacing a fan motor you should also replace the cap or at least check the capacitance to see if it is still good. you have to check it with a meter that test microfarad.you can get a permanent split capacitor and mount it in there then u use the brown on one side and the brown and white on the other side it only has 2 terminals.

Motor Wiring
Old Motor
Brown wire is Start
Yellow wire is run or Power
Black wire is High Speed or Common
The other two taps are speed taps, but you have a single speed application
And high speed is what you need ,that’s why there’s not any wires
on Red and Blue if high speed was to much then you would move the
Black wire to one of the other taps RED low speed or Blue Medinm speed
New Motor
White goes to the Yellow wire from the capacitor
Black goes to the Black wire you took off of high speed on old motor
Of course both Brown wires go to the capacitor and Green to ground
If a capacitor doesn’t discharge it doesn’t mean it’s bad
but the capacitors don’t last as long as they used.
Any time you put in a new motor always replace the capacitor
It will save you a lot of time and grief later on.

The two terminal cap is only for the new fan motor. Connect the compressor wire back where you found it, on the 3 terminal cap. It's the terminal marked, "herm". The "common" terminal on the 3 terminal cap must still be connected to one side of the 220 power at the contactor. One side of the 220 goes to the common on the compressor. The other side of the 220 goes to the run winding on the compressor AND the common terminal on the 3 terminal capacitor.