Infamous heater blend door

My wife's '99 Windstar heater blend door finally met its inevitable fate. After much work, I finally can see it but will need to cut into the casing to remove it. The pix I saw on here from a long time ago showed the cuts. Hopefully, I will be able to find all the broken off parts. It looked like the hollow shaft was broken in three places but not sure since it went inside the casing and is on top of the door so I still can't see it, even with the lower cover and core removed.
I now can see for myself, by playing with the door motor, that the 90 degree rotation of the motor shaft when in both extremes of slider setting is quite a bit more than the allowable range of motion of the door itself. No wonder these are all breaking. Just like my Eagle Premier heat/defrost door crank broke off because its vacuum motor had way more range of motion than the rotation of the crank would allow. After awhile, the crank just snapped off, no way to fix it so I ripped out the door and am stuck on heat/defrost mode with that car. Anyway, wish me luck in patching up the door from the Windstar.

Phil

Thanks a big lot for the Pix. I'm hoping I can cut it correctly, especially since everything is upside down and cramped in there. A LITERAL pain in the neck, to say the least. I'll need to borrow my son-in-law's Dremel tool for the cut, assuming he has the correct blade, or I'll have to buy one for it. Would silicone cement make a good "filler" to patch it all back together? If I can't salvage the door shaft, I'm wondering if I can even find a junker near here to get another door out of. That is still my biggest worry about all this.

Thanks again,
Phil

I suggest outlining the cut with some sort of marker before actually making the cut. Gives some time for reflection.

Yeah, RTV could be used as a filler ... but for little reason, I think. The cut-line gets pretty well covered over during reassembly of the other parts.

I suspect the broken door will be found in two parts, if yours is like most others. If you could remove a replacement blend door at the salvage yard, that would be good I think ... but repairing the original door seems to be a lot less effort.

You will see the heat warpage in the door. This is the reason to no longer move the heat controller to either full position.

I have also come up with a quick fix for this issue. Though not as functionally complete it works.

I just pulled the actuator out and the broken ear came with it. I then epoxied a piece of coat hanger into the actuator shaped like an extended hokey stick. It took a little experimentation to get the angles correct for the motor movement. Stuck the actuator in with the coat hanger under the flap.

This fix should only be used in the full heat or full cool position. Turn the fan to the lowest setting before changing the heat setting as the air pressure will bind the door. Once in the full heat setting turn the fan up and the air pressure will seat the door and you have heat. To adjust the heat if it gets too warm i just crack a window and change the vent that the heat is coming out of. However with how cold winters are in Minnesota we rarely need less than full heat.

With all the bad weather we've been having here in Michigan, it has been several days since I could get out there to work on it. I cut out the area needed as per the excellent pictures provided on this site, and that proved quite easy with the Dremel tool. The bad news is that the shaft on the door broke in three places and the third small piece is nowhere to be found. I hope it won't blow around in there when I reassemble everything. I reached wherever I could since that small piece would seem as though it should drop out when I took the covering off it all. In any case, it looks like I'll have to go to the scrap yard, do all that miserable work again, just to get another door, HOPING that the door in the next unit is not already broken or ready to break. With luck, if someone has already opened one up to get a heater core, my work will be quick and simple. Again, I can only hope and pray.

Thanks for the help,
Phil

Is there no chance just to "make" the missing piece? Two-part epoxy followed with some shaping by the Dremel tool ....... ??

Unfortunately, my skills in that area are pretty far off. Anyway, I wanted to post that I have finished the job tonight, after lots of busting-*** work, both in the van at the scrapyard getting the door out of that one to putting it all back together in my wife's van. How wonderful it is now to finally be able to "fine tune" the heat so we're not either stifling or freezing such as it has been for more than a year now. We got the van in October last year. It always made clicking noises when trying to change the temp by much. Strange, since the servo motor has no problems. I could hold back the shaft from turning and there was no clicking anywhere along its range of motion, again, nearly 90 degrees. The Door I took out as well as the one I put back in had no trace of warpage and mated up to the opposing surfaces perfectly in either extreme of motion. As I mentioned before, the range of motion for the door is quite a bit less than the motor's range, which is why these doors are breaking after while. So, I'm just going to make sure we don't ever set the slider to either extreme. I test drove it tonight and sure enough, you get full cold or full heat without having to have the slider all the way to either end.
Again, I wish to thank all of you who have helped out here as well as the pix of the cutting needed to do the job. The cutting turned out to be much easier than I thought. Getting the new door in was the "trickiest". Even the frontmost mounting screw for the bottom cover went in quickly.

Thanks again,
Phil


Is there no chance just to "make" the missing piece? Two-part epoxy followed with some shaping by the Dremel tool ....... ??

Congrats on a great repair! Thanks for the feedback.

Guys! I found a kit that repairs the broken blend door problem with no dash removal and takes about an hour. The kit is called the HeaterTreater and they have installation videos on youtube. check it out: www.heatertreater.net