Furnace blower will run but won't start by itself,*

[Doug_G]

Hello all,
I have a comfort-aire patriot 80 plus oil fired furnace. The problem I'm having is the blower fan won't start by itself, if I take the inspection cover off and start the squirrel cage myself it runs and will run fine through the cycle, until the next call for heat and the problem persists. Is there a way to tell if its the capacitor or the *
We just bought the house in June and this is the first time we have needed the furnace. I think the system was sparingly used over the last few years as the previous owner burned wood also. The basement gets quite humid through the summer, when I first fired the unit and purged the air from the lines you could here a slight hum coming from the motor like it was trying to start. I shut off the power and tried spinning the squirrel cage and it wouldn't spin until I applied some force, then it broke free and spun freely. I'm hoping it isn't the motor..... any advice is appreciated.

[Silverjwj]

Try oiling it, if it was stuck it prob is the motor. You can check the capacitor using a meter that can read microfarads to see if its any good.

[Freon]

Assuming when you spin the blower wheel by hand it spins freely and is quiet and If the blower motor is a PSC motor (IE it uses a capacitor to run), then replace the capacitor with an IDENTICAL capacitor. All your descriptions point to a bad run capacitor.