96 explorer, only blows hot air

[wildstang]

Well, I got the new actuator on thursday and tried it that night by first plugging it in, now it works with the switch. I installed it but no difference in the heat, still blows hot all the time no matter what the position of the temp switch. Unfortunately it looks like I also need to pull the heater box out. What a let down that was, I was hoping it would be that easy.

David, have you been able to get the heater box out yet, if so what did you have to do to do it?

I did get the idler pulley changed and belt, so at least it wasn't a total waste of time.

 

[wildstang]

Oroper, can you get a small wood screw and possibly screw it into the top of the shaft enough to pull it out?

 

[wildstang]

I stopped at my local dealer to get an exploded diagram of the heater box and find out the cost of a replacement door and found out that you can't get just the door, you need to buy both halves of the plenum because the door comes with the assembly. Going through my dad's account, that will still cost me $235. They did let me copy the service manual for how they recommend doing the job. The service manager said they normaly schedule it as a full day because the dash need to come off (like you said David) in order to get to it.

 

[David Suesz]

They are ripping you off...

their crappy engineering (cheap plastic) original door was corrected with WAY overkill, requiring a replacement heater assembly. For $15 plus shipping you can get a door with installation cutting template and cover plate to install a new door a least 3x stronger than the Ford door.


http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/e...d=1,1&item=8049980127&sspagename=STRK:MEWN:IT

 

[David Suesz]

Part II

No, I won't be getting into it until the end of the month at the earliest. But as I said, you can pull the evaporator assembly away from the firewall 6", more than enough to remove the attaching bolts to remove the heater from the firewall. What is cool about this, is I didn't need to disconnect the AC hoses, which saves time and LOTS of money. I'll bet the book and your dealer wanted to disconnect the hoses and recharge the system, cha-ching!


All I did was use a couple of bungee cords to keep the evap from the firewall. No way around loosening the dash, although complete removal is probably unnecessary, 4-6" of upward, rearward movement of the RH side of the dash should be plenty. It may be possible to swap the doors without cutting, but I won't know until I am in there. The OE door is flimsy enough to pull out, but the new one is pretty stiff. I haven't decided about the console yet, it may be possible to leave it in.

 

[robert Milner]

blend door

mine did that for a while. I did the bled door repair and all was well for a cppl days. Then doing another mod I changed my GEM and presto everything works! I however have the electronic climate control on my 96.

Hey what is the GEM ?? sorry for being dumb.

 

[wildstang]

Thanks for the link David, I may buy this and try it, hell of a lot cheaper then the whole assembly.

robert, I think GEM stands for general electronic control module, most of the electronic functions go through it. If you do a search you will probably come up with a lot of result pages.

 

[David Suesz]

Heater Blend Door Good News

Did the heater blend door yesterday, using the Haynes manual. They go to great lengths to describe and illustrate the two LH dash bolts and the lower RH bolt, which any fool could find in about one minute, but casually remark you should remove the defroster trim and remove the screws on the top. After squinting throught the windshield for a while, I saw there were 3 more large bolts on the top, two on the left above the gauges, and one above the glove box, as well as two sheet metal screws holding the defogger outlet to the firewall. The console would have been easy if they had told me about the tab at the back which had to be slid rearward after removing the four bolts they did tell me about, which was stuck and took nearly an hour to figure out and unstick.

Also, Haynes says to disconnect the main wiring harness on the LH and RH ends of the dash. I did not. They say to remove the LH A pillar trim and LH kick panel. I did not. They say to remove the PCM, and I did, but later for the life of me I can't see why. They say to remove the RH airbag, probably for safety, which I did, because it takes about two minutes. They say to remove the instrument cluster, I did not. I did not remove the dash, I only pulled the RH end of it rearward about a foot.

Meanwhile, I did get the dash loose, and by disconnecting the pushpins (not the connectors!) holding the RH wiring harness, I was able to move the dash rearward about a foot, easily enough to remove the heater. Even better, with full access, I was able, by putting a large screwdriver between the alternately the top and bottom of the door and heater case, to pop the old door out, and conversely the new door in. Took about 2 minutes. The manufacturer of the door includes a cutting template and steel repair panel for cutting open the top of the case to insert the door, and happily it was not necessary. Even better, if you were willing to take the car to a shop before hand, have the refrigerant removed, and later pay to have the refrigerant put back in, making it possible to completely remove the evaporator, I believe you could R&R the door without disturbing the dash. With the evaporator in the way, the firewall nuts for the heater case are accessible, but only David Copperfield could get the the blend door out with only five or six inches of clearance. Since I wasn't sure, I elected to do the whole job. While I had the heater out, I discovered the source of a rattle- the prior owner had lost a penny down in the defroster, which was running around inside the heater case, so pulling the case worked out OK for me.

Anyway, it should be a four or five hour job if done this way (five would be including a problem, like I had with the console), or more like two if you removed the refrigerant and evaporator. Quite nice, considering the $850 plus parts the local Ford dealer was offering to charge.

 

[Papa]

David that would be so great if this can really be done by removing the evaporator. Thanks for the heads up.

 

[wildstang]

Thanks David, I will hopefully have the pleasure of doing this within a couple of weeks.

What on the door tends to break.

thanks.

 

[David Suesz]

On the top end of the spine of the door is

a D shaped socket for the actuator shaft. The square corners of the D crack, allowing one or even two of the sides to break off. The Chinese door available on eBay is a fiber reinforced plasic far superior, but dimensionally identical to the original part. It even comes with the foam seals already installed, ready to use.

 

[wildstang]

Thank you Dave. I did buy the one off ebay that you mentioned. Looks like a pretty solid piece and I didn't know what would break on it.

 

[teamonetl]

there was a thread here awhile ago with detail pictures on how to drill the shaft and put a pice of a nail through it and reinstall. I did that and added 1 wrap of hockey tape to the shaft. Worked good as new, took a whole 15 mins to do. Amazing, and FORD wanted $1300+ to do it.

 

[wildstang]

David, you mentioned in the kit you bought it had a template to show cutting the heater box for acces but I didn't get any direction or template (I don't think the template came in it) with mine. Do you still have the instructions with yours and if so could you fax or scan them to me? If not I will try to get hold of the seller from ebay. Thanks.

Teamonetl, if you could find those pictures on that fix that would be great. Thanks.

 

[David Suesz]

Strange, the door

I got had two steel pieces with it, one is a cutting template, and the other was a patch to cover the hole from inserting the door. I did not use either, I simply inserted the door through the air inlet on the firewall side of the heater box. The instruction sheet had no illustrations.

I don't like the idea of the "nail through the shaft" trick, unless you were smack on with the installed angle of the nail, you'd either not get fully heat off or fully heat on. With the stiffer replacement door, it seals better at both extremes than the OE door ever did.

 

[wildstang]

I thought it would be hard with the nail also but just another option. I got those same plates but I don't think I got the directions with it. I haven't looked at the kit for a while but I assume the smaller of the metal plates would be the cutting template?

 

[David Suesz]

The template is

the steel plate with the big slot in it, which you would insert the door through. I didn't use it. I just inserted the door through the big firewall air inlet.

 

[kidakat]

The "nail through the shaft" trick worked again

Well, I'm another one with this issue on my 1997 Sport. On mine, the servo was fine, but the D-shaped hole in the blend door axle was cracked where they typically do. I agreed with David's statement when he said "unless you were smack on with the installed angle of the nail, you'd either not get fully heat off or fully heat on."

When I did mine, I spent an extra 10 minutes using a mirror to see the angle of the crack and then gauging where to drill. I was sure I was at least going to be very close by the time I drilled the hole. A Dremel tool worked well for drilling the hole. When I inserted the nail and tried it out, at first it wouldn't go in. So I again removed the servo, I tried shortening the nail this time in case it was spanning the hole. Next try, Viola! It went straight in.

I heated the truck up and tried changing my heat. Success! So, in my opinion, it's worth a try since it only takes maybe an hour, start to finish.

Below is a link to the procedure that I followed. The only change was that I didn't blindly drill where the doc says to drill, I made sure I had the servo in the matching position to that of the D-shaped hole first, than drilled at the angle of the crack.

Good luck!

http://www.blenddoorfix.netfirms.com/