Cold air blowing on passenger side

[Bain64]

Good morning group, I found a new issue with my new-to-me expy and I'm hoping for yet some more advice from you awesome folks. Driving on the highway yesterday and the Mrs. informed me that cold air was blowing in behind the glove compartment and feet area on the passenger side.

• Heat at 90F, Cold air passenger side only when recirc door open, improved or solved when recirc door closed using HVAC controls
• Air was HOT on the drivers side and rear

Leads me to believe that the recirc door works, but blend door or blend door actuator/motor has failed. Am I close? Would the drivers side still get heat if the passenger blend door/actuator failed? I don't have dual-climate for passenger (just front/back), but it is the automatic EATC variety.

 

[1955moose]

I'm reaching here, but it sounds like something popped off, or went awry with the plastic plenum heat box. You stated you have the eatc electronic model, so go into diagnostics mode, I posted how in another post, see what pops up. You don't have the dual climate control like newer models have, so we rule that out. Crawl around under dash/ hood, report what you find.

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[Bain64]

Thanks, forgot about the diagnostics on the EATC, had to do it on my old Grand Marquis at one point. Buttons 'Off' & 'Foot', then 'Automatic' within 2 seconds. I haven't run the diag yet, got the battery unplugged at the moment. The 6 disc changer errors out and won't load any discs, so I pulled it. I found a worm gear inside the unit laying on the circuit board, not where it should be. The glue is drying now, once I get it put back together I'll run the EATC diag. Thanks again Moose.

 

[1955moose]

No problem, post what you find.

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[Bain64]

No code on the EATC. Just a full feedback screen after the test ends, picture below. I can't see much from under the hood regarding the recirc door.




It'll likely be Friday before I get much further, I'll pull the glovebox to watch the movements while cycling the controls and lift the truck and see what I can find from below. If I'm extremely lucky maybe just some debris. Apparently the actuators and doors are happy or they likely would've thrown a code during the EATC test. Can I access it from the cowl below the windshield?

P.S. no luck with the CD6 repair, yet at least. I'm not sure if the glue didn't hold and the worm gear came loose again, haven't pulled the unit from the dash a 3rd time.. More likely that was only one of several issues with the unit. But the head unit reports 'cd error' after starting the truck and when attempting to load or eject a disc. Rear dvd still operational though. Thanks and I'll report back.

 

[1955moose]

I don't know if this pertains to your suv, but on Dodge ram trucks when they had same issue, turned out that the heater core was partially clogged. Apparently they have a split chamber in the core, that's sends heat to both sides. Maybe one of the others can confirm or deny if our vehicles have a split heater core. In the Dodge truck case, they flushed the core out, and brought back the heat to the cold side. The other scenario is even though your vehicle doesn't have dual zone climate control, some vehicles still have the separate doors under dash. It's possible something their malfunctioned.

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[Bain64]

I found a few minutes to look further and notice 2 things. First, the carpet on the passenger side floorboard nearly covers the floor heat vent, it looks like the carpet used to tuck up underneath, but something went awry awry along the way. This was preventing much of the heat from reaching the passenger's feet.



I then removed the glovebox, and notice the fresh air door is in good working condition. I did however find the cold air that the passenger noted is simply escaping from the seam all the way around the air box, where the fresh air meets the heater core. If removing the blockage from the passenger floor vent doesn't help enough, I'll put some gorilla tape around the seams of the air box and test again. Super glad for what appears to be a free fix. Thanks for talking it out with me moose.

 

[1955moose]

No worries, glad it was an easy fix!

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