AC Actuator Door Replacement

[bronsonb]

Hi Fellow Expedition Owners-
My 2004 Eddie Bauer has what appears to be a failed actuator door, so my AC is not working for the front. Rear AC still works fine. I tool it to a repair shop, and they were the ones who diagnosed the actuator door being broken.

I found one detailed video online for how to replace the actuator motor, but the video did not discuss how to replace the door. From what I could tell, it appears the door is located in the compartment below the actuator motor.

The repair shop quoted about $800 to just remove the dashboard to get to the actuator door. Since it's a 14 year old car, and it's not my daily driver, I opted to skip paying to have this done.

I plan to do it myself, but I've not been able to find any directions for how to get this done. Does anyone have anything that might help?

 

[R W Carpenter]

It seems to me that it would be unlikely that it is the door itself that is the issue. It is common for the shaft on the actuator motors to break as they are made of plastic. I would remove the old motor first and see if that is your issue. If you found the video online then you know as well as I do that it is not necessary to remove the entire dashboard to get to the motor.

Good luck and let us know what you find out.

 

[1955moose]

You might want to buy a Ford dealer repair DVD online before you tackle the job, but Rw's most likely correct. You won't 100 percent know untill you dig into it. It's sad that so many shops are dishonest that way. They charge for dash removal, and reality never do, they probably only take about 2 hours to fix your problem. Now you know why you always check into repair estimates before pulling the plug. Stick around the forum here, we'll teach you more than $800.00 worth.

Sent from my N9131 using Tapatalk

 

[bronsonb]

It seems to me that it would be unlikely that it is the door itself that is the issue. It is common for the shaft on the actuator motors to break as they are made of plastic. I would remove the old motor first and see if that is your issue. If you found the video online then you know as well as I do that it is not necessary to remove the entire dashboard to get to the motor.

Good luck and let us know what you find out.

Thanks R W. Good to know that it MIGHT be the actuator motor itself and NOT the door. The tech who looked at it admits that it's difficult to determine EXACTLY what it is without removing the dash. The video I watched noted that you could replace the actuator motor in just a couple of hours. I've actually replaced the steering wheel controls on the Expy several tmes because the replacement sets I bought didn't work for some reason, so I've removed the airbag three times from the car. I change my own oil and have done other minor repairs, but the Expedition hasn't needed much beyond regular maintenance.

I will pull the old motor and see what that does. It might be a week or two before I get to that, but I will report back.

 

[bronsonb]

You might want to buy a Ford dealer repair DVD online before you tackle the job, but Rw's most likely correct. You won't 100 percent know untill you dig into it. It's sad that so many shops are dishonest that way. They charge for dash removal, and reality never do, they probably only take about 2 hours to fix your problem. Now you know why you always check into repair estimates before pulling the plug. Stick around the forum here, we'll teach you more than $800.00 worth.

Sent from my N9131 using Tapatalk

Thanks! I am on the lookout for a repair DVD. I had one for my Taurus ages ago, and it proved helpful more than once. I loved your comment about y'll teaching me more than $800 worth of knowledge. That's already been the case as I've used info from this site to remove the steering wheel controls, replace the rear AC actuator motor, and do a few other minor repairs . Take care!

 

[Bain64]

Thanks! I am on the lookout for a repair DVD.

Look no further, here's the one I use.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/2004-Ford-OEM-Factory-Service-Repair-Manual-Set-ON-DVD/272570466205

 

[bronsonb]

Look no further, here's the one I use.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/2004-Ford-OEM-Factory-Service-Repair-Manual-Set-ON-DVD/272570466205

Thanks sir! Ordering now. I actually still have a Windows 7 PC at home with a DVD drive that should run this. My work laptop no longer has a DVD drive, and my other computers are all Macs . But I've even BUY an external drive to access this.

 

[Bain64]

Thanks sir! Ordering now. I actually still have a Windows 7 PC at home with a DVD drive that should run this. My work laptop no longer has a DVD drive, and my other computers are all Macs . But I've even BUY an external drive to access this.

Awesome!
Once it arrives, clone the disc into an .iso file. Then you can mount the .iso from any Windows computer (including Win 10), instead of loading the CD every time. This way you only need the CD & CD Reader once.

 

[BRIANGEE]

before you fork out the cash do a search on this forum - there were a couple of links to get it for free.


EDIT:

Like this:
https://www.expeditionforum.com/threads/service-manual.35240/#post-297331