Blend door actuators.

[AZdesertrat]

They have a tool for jobs like these. It's called an Under Dash Creeper.

 

[MossRoad]

Well, I spent 3 hours upside down in both the passenger and driver seats in the 2013 Impala and changed two of the 3 door motors. The easy one to get to wasn't bad! Go figure.

Word to the wise... watch many u-tube videos. The first few I watched said I had to take the glovebox apart. After taking at apart another video showed how to just pull two pins underneath it and the whole thing pops out. Grrr...

The outside air/inside air door motor was bad, and the driver's side temperature control motor was bad. The first one had a couple teeth missing from the gear on the bottom, and the 2nd had some missing from a top gear.

$38 at autozone. Could have gotten them cheaper on line, but I wanted it done.

My wife walked by the car and started laughing as my contorted body was hanging upside down in the seat.

 

[MossRoad]

I’m going by memory, I think my daughters car was a 2010, but the one I changed was behind the glove box. I didn’t have to stand on my head, I could sit in the seat. I think there was 3 bolts that held it in, and not exaggerating, I spent 30 minutes or more taking one of those three bolts in and putting it back in. I tried every wrench and socket I owned. I think I just used an open end wrench and could turn it a tiny bit, flip it over, then turn it a little more.

I think I also had to change the little resistor box that controlled the blower speed on that car, it was pretty easy to get to. Also the front door speakers and the power door lock actuator on the back door.

It ended up being a 7/32 deepwell socket on a small 1/4 ratchet did the trick for me. All 3 motors have 2 bolts and all the motors have the same part number.

 

[MossRoad]

I found it easier to look at it, then close my eyes and do it by feel, as it's impossible for me to get my bifocals to line up with the parts if I try looking at them under there.

 

[Richard001]

I replaced two of the blend door actuators on my 2010 Challenger today. Car has 22,000 miles on it. I drove it to town yesterday and no heat. I think only one was bad but I did both while I was in there. You have to stand on your head to change one of them. Apparently they sharpen everything under the dash because I darn near needed a blood transfusion afterwards. Took me about 3 1/2 hours, about $75. I did one several years ago on my daughters Impala and it was behind the glove box but still took a while to do. I don’t know why some of these parts are so cheaply made.

My wife thought the first picture was funny, the second picture shows the scrapes, the other arm was worse.

You are lucky that the replacement part was available to purchase. Two years ago, the blend door on my 1999 Dodge 3500 8 passenger van stopped working. Took me a while to figure out what the problem was. So after determining that the blend door mechanism was not working, I checked with the local auto parts places, nope, nothing for your van, sorry.

Then went to Dodge, sorry, Dodge no longer carries parts for that van. So now what ?

I took the part out of the van, was not to hard once I figured out that taking out the glove box first was the trick. Took the motor apart to find that the cheep why that they put the thing together was the problem. They have a plastic gear in which they pressed a metal shaft into the center of the gear. Well what a surprise, the plastic gear split and thus the shaft would slip and not do the job.

Here is a photo of the split plastic gear:

Well crap, it's either throw away a 99 Dodge van, or do something. So here was my fix.

I carefully cut a grove all the way around the center of the plastic gear, then put a small wire around it in the grove and twisted it very tight. As the rotation of the large gear was only about 90 degrees, I just made sure that the wire twist would not get in the way of the drive gear.

Still working fine.

Richard

 

[dodge man]

I found it easier to look at it, then close my eyes and do it by feel, as it's impossible for me to get my bifocals to line up with the parts if I try looking at them under there.

Hey Moss, I’ve had the same problem with glasses. I just got new glasses and asked them if cheap readers would help and if so what strength. She set me up with 1.5 on her machine and had me read stuff on a card, perfect strength and about $10 at Walmart. They work great but make you dizzy looking further away. Basically the entire lenses is setup for reading so even if your working over your head they work.

Shame on your wife not getting a picture of you in the car working on it.

 

[MossRoad]

Hey Moss, I’ve had the same problem with glasses. I just got new glasses and asked them if cheap readers would help and if so what strength. She set me up with 1.5 on her machine and had me read stuff on a card, perfect strength and about $10 at Walmart. They work great but make you dizzy looking further away. Basically the entire lenses is setup for reading so even if your working over your head they work.

Shame on your wife not getting a picture of you in the car working on it.

Yeah, I have readers somewhere too. I used to use them at my last job when inspecting machines. They're somewhere in my toolbox.

I actually wear trifocals. Bottoms are good to about 14", middle to about 30", and tops to infinity. But sometimes I can't tilt my head back far enough to see something thats close to my face when in close quarters, like under a dashboard while upside down.

My mom was an artist. She had some crazy trifocals made for herself. They were like mine, but also had lenses on top. So 5 lenses in one. Top and bottom were close, next top and bottom were middle, and single middle grind was infinity. Think about how hard it would be to paint the top portion of a large painting if you had to keep looking at your subject and tilting your nose all the way up!

 

[MossRoad]

You are lucky that the replacement part was available to purchase. Two years ago, the blend door on my 1999 Dodge 3500 8 passenger van stopped working. Took me a while to figure out what the problem was. So after determining that the blend door mechanism was not working, I checked with the local auto parts places, nope, nothing for your van, sorry.

Then went to Dodge, sorry, Dodge no longer carries parts for that van. So now what ?

I took the part out of the van, was not to hard once I figured out that taking out the glove box first was the trick. Took the motor apart to find that the cheep why that they put the thing together was the problem. They have a plastic gear in which they pressed a metal shaft into the center of the gear. Well what a surprise, the plastic gear split and thus the shaft would slip and not do the job.

Here is a photo of the split plastic gear:
View attachment 768613

Well crap, it's either throw away a 99 Dodge van, or do something. So here was my fix.

View attachment 768615

I carefully cut a grove all the way around the center of the plastic gear, then put a small wire around it in the grove and twisted it very tight. As the rotation of the large gear was only about 90 degrees, I just made sure that the wire twist would not get in the way of the drive gear.

Still working fine.

Richard

Nice repair.

 

[Oaktree]

You want sharp edges, try working on older vehicles!! I have a mid-60s Dodge, figured I'd clean out the 50 years' worth of pine needles, leaves, mouse turds, etc. from the cowling so as to un-plug the weep holes. Only way to get in there is thru the floor vents on each end. Hard enough to snake your arm far enough up to grab all that stuff to begin with, but the edge of the hole is VERY sharp. Ended up wrapping a couple layers of duct tape around my wrist & forearm as a shield. It was either that or risk slicing an artery.

As far as blend doors go, there should be a special place you-know-where for whoever invented that whole scheme. The old cable-operated heater controls worked just fine.

 

[Oaktree]

Also the front door speakers and the power door lock actuator on the back door.

This past summer the latch on my Jeep's hatchback was binding, had to remove the inside cover to get at the mechanism to lube it. Man, what a PITA!! Cover was held on by a mixture of screws and hidden plastic clips. Actually getting it off wasn't as bad as putting it back on...at least taking it off gravity worked with me.
Somebody did not want it to fall off!!