Petes93cutlass Posted November 10, 2014 Report Share Posted November 10, 2014 It's a 1993 cutlass supreme convertible with the auto climate controls. Now, for the story... When heat is set to 90 the passenger side blows hot and driver side luke warm. The actuators are all working properly. The climate control has no error codes and tested good. The following items are new: New water pump, Thermostat, radiator, and heater core. Knowing that all these items were new, I started looking closer at the heater box. I removed the both lower underdash panels, as well as, the lower part of the dash where the ash tray is. I then removed the lower heater box cover exposing the heat core and bottom blend door. I started checking the actuators one at a time verifying that they are work properly. The last thing I checked for was the operation of the blend door from heat to cold. This is where things get interesting. When I start adjusting the temp from 90 to 60 the blend door opens and closes. The problem is that when I set it to 90, the blend door comes down and instead of closing completely flush against the 3 x 8 opening, the blend door closes on the passenger side but closes at an angle and the drivers side has a one inch gap. Therefore, the luke warm air on the drivers side and hot on the passenger. So the question is, has anyone ever run into this problem? is the door broken or can something be bent or is something installed improperly? I know the answer is anyone of these but I wanna know if anyone has ever run into this problem before. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pitzel Posted November 10, 2014 Report Share Posted November 10, 2014 (edited) Yeah I ran into that problem I think. Remove the door and reseat it properly. Literally a 2 minute fix once you're in there! Yes, a lot of work, but it completely fixed the problem. Not sure how it (the door becoming unseated) happened though, it seems pretty solid on my car. Same set of symptoms, which was obviously a giant problem given that I live pretty far north and had to drive in -40degC at times. Car sort of got a bit of heat, but it was always so cold (to the point where I'd drive with a blanket just to tolerate it!), and never really could get things defrosted properly until I fixed it. Good luck, and as always, remember that the dash uses a few different kind of screws and shows no kindness if you happen to use the wrong ones to reassemble individual parts. Edited November 10, 2014 by pitzel Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Petes93cutlass Posted November 16, 2014 Author Report Share Posted November 16, 2014 So I remove the black box cover that exposes the heater core and door. did you just reach up in there and moved the door or did you have to remove the entire heater box that requires the entire dash to be removed Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pitzel Posted November 16, 2014 Report Share Posted November 16, 2014 Just reached in there and did it, no contortionist acts required other than getting in there. Yeah if you have heater core access, that's all I needed to re-seat the door. Heater box / dash didn't need to come out totally, nor did the heater core. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Petes93cutlass Posted November 16, 2014 Author Report Share Posted November 16, 2014 one last question... How is the door held in place when you reseat it? does the door have like small dimples on it that lock into place? Did you use a screw driver or some other tool? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Petes93cutlass Posted November 16, 2014 Author Report Share Posted November 16, 2014 does that also mean the shaft of the motor that controls the door is bent? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ron350 Posted November 16, 2014 Report Share Posted November 16, 2014 Your driver side blend door actuator motor is probably bad with a cracked gear inside. The driver side actuator motor is harder to replace because of extra stuff in the way. http://www.w-body.com/showthread.php/30205-Electronic-Climate-Control?highlight=actuator http://www.w-body.com/showthread.php/77189-Re-sync-Gears-on-Blendor-door-actuator?highlight=actuator Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Petes93cutlass Posted November 16, 2014 Author Report Share Posted November 16, 2014 If you can picture this... Right behind the heater there is a rectangular opening that has like a 3inch wide by 10 opening. I can see the blend open and close when I change the temperature from hot to cold. the blend door when the hot is selected starts to turn but doesn't close squarely over the opening. Inside it closes on a 45 degree angle. Now Pitzel states that I can just reach up there and grab the door by hand and reset it. It sounds simple but I need to know if there is a track that the door fits into or if the door has a nipple on it that pops back into a hole. Im not sure if a bad actuator would cause the door to close crooked Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pitzel Posted November 16, 2014 Report Share Posted November 16, 2014 If you can picture this... Right behind the heater there is a rectangular opening that has like a 3inch wide by 10 opening. I can see the blend open and close when I change the temperature from hot to cold. the blend door when the hot is selected starts to turn but doesn't close squarely over the opening. Inside it closes on a 45 degree angle. Now Pitzel states that I can just reach up there and grab the door by hand and reset it. Yup, that's exactly what I did. Its held in place on both ends by a very simple pin. For some reason, the drivers side gets dislodged. My theory is that a bunch of ice or snow gets into the airbox sometime during the winter (ie: an air conditioning drain that doesn't work properly in the summer) and causes it to dislodge as the actuator moves it. There's no 'tracks'. Its very, very simple to do once you're in there. It sounds simple but I need to know if there is a track that the door fits into or if the door has a nipple on it that pops back into a hole. Im not sure if a bad actuator would cause the door to close crooked Yeah I thought it was the actuator and spent a long time fiddling with it till I ended up taking the whole box apart. There's no tracks. Its just a hole on each end of the upper box that the door swings on. One end is connected to the actuator (the little motor gizmo probably with a red sticker on it). The other just is loose. Trust me, once you get in there, you'll be scratching your head as to why it ever came apart, but it did on mine, and sounds like it has on yours. Just be careful with the lower tray. With how complicated it can be to remove, you might break it (I know I did). I ended up having to get an auto body shop with some of that 3M plastic weld stuff to repair it for me. Might be helpful to remove the accelerator pedal temporarily just to give you a bit more clearance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pitzel Posted November 16, 2014 Report Share Posted November 16, 2014 does that also mean the shaft of the motor that controls the door is bent? Wasn't on mine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pitzel Posted November 16, 2014 Report Share Posted November 16, 2014 one last question... How is the door held in place when you reseat it? does the door have like small dimples on it that lock into place? Did you use a screw driver or some other tool? No tools other than hands. **----------------** } actuator | | | | | | --------------- Just seat the ** 's into the holes on each side of the upper box. The upper box's plastic is pliable enough that you can just bend it a little to get it in there. But once you're done, it is a nice and tight fit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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