The recirculation motor was making a terrible grinding sound when I would turn on the car. The shaft connecting the motor to the damper was broken and the motor was still operating/grinding.
After acquiring a new motor from the junkyard, I pried up all sides of the cover on the case and cleaned the carbon tracks that detect the positioning of the output gear/peg with Isopropyl alcohol. I lubed the gearset with white lithium grease and applied a small amount of dielectric grease to the carbon track. more to lubricate than to protect against oxidization. I snapped the cover back on and reinstalled the motor.