Heater temperature switch stuck all the way over at hot

[bigg94]

My son has a 1991 Explorer XLT. He was driving it today, turned heat on to warm things up a bit, but when he attempted to move the temperature control slider back toward the left after he got sufficiently warm, it wouldn't move. It's stuck all the way over to the right at hot, will not move at all. The fan switch still works OK, it's just the temperature slider. Anyone got any idea what might be going on here, and how involved and expensive a fix it's going to be? Thanks!

On edit, he just told me that the slider feels like it's actually broken loose from whatever it was mounted on.

 

[cogs]

mine is stuck in the other direction, in that it goes from left to middle, then stops. funny thing is, the air blows from warm to hot, so it's always warm air. it's like whatever the slider's connected to has limited movement, and what it's supposed to open and close stays open? please advise, thanks cogs

 

[Ramblinwilly]

Standard answer is that you will probably have to get to the unit from the inside to determine the exact cause. You might be able to pull the radio out to get a decent look. There a few possible causes. The cable could be kinked/broken restricting the movement of the slider. The slider mechanism might be jammed/broken causing the movement issue. This job is somewhat labor intensive but can be accomplished if you have a moderate level of mechanical skill. As I said, the first step is to see the slider from the inside. Hope this helps.


2.

 

[cogs]

mine was the cable came apart from the blue support clip, near the slider end. the clip's purpose is to hold the metal end (looks like it's threaded) of the cable's sheath, while the metal part of the cable line pulls back and forth within the black sheath. so i shoved the sheath's metal end (looks like it's threaded) back into the blue plastic clip, hoping it'll stay there, lol.
i just removed the ashtray, the metal box for the ashtray (2 small bolts on each side). you don't have to remove the cable's plug, just take out the clip from the holes. then you have free access to grab the black slider cable and insert it back into the blue clip.