Bonneville blower AC climate control problem

[jdq]

Originally Posted by jdq

Im having aproblem also with Climate Control and its killing me.I spent 2 days going over vaccuum hoses which i did find a leak by throttle body and fixed.Cleaned out heater core and changed hoses its ok, changed thermostat,cleaned out evap core,fan woks well ,but only coming out of floor or defrost on heat,blowing warmish cool air.When on A/C it will come out of mid vents.Top rad hose is hot,outside air temp seems normal.spent hours on Hvac programmer che cking leaks,(the for resistor looking things in HVAC programmer that have brownish filter on on them 3out of the4 when I cover with finger make a air noise ,dont know if means anything.
1990 bonn sse ,digital climate control,3800

please ,please help I cant take it JDQ and thankyou

Forgot to mention I can see acuator arm is in good shape and moves 90 degrees closing and opening door does that mean I can eliminate Hvac leaks. thanx JDQ

[KETRA HERNANDEZ]

Originally Posted by jdq

Forgot to mention I can see acuator arm is in good shape and moves 90 degrees closing and opening door does that mean I can eliminate Hvac leaks. thanx JDQ

my car has no heat and i kind of have similar problems. my problem is the heat isn't coming out of the vents and the line is warm. where is the door flapper to the heater located?

[jdq]

Originally Posted by KETRA HERNANDEZ

my car has no heat and i kind of have similar problems. my problem is the heat isn't coming out of the vents and the line is warm. where is the door flapper to the heater located?

tHE DOOR FLAPPER (ACTUATOR)is behind glove comp.Take couple screws out of hush panel under glove box to lower down ,take 4 screws out of glove box to take it off and voila ,you will see different color small hoses going to Hvac programmer ,take off and check for any leaks in these vaccuum lines,also check vaccuum lines under hood first they tend to get soft or crack at rubber connectors.Anyways up above Hvac programmer on top of air vent molding you will see a metal bar and that is attached to your flapper door.Turn heat on lower temp for air and see if this metal arm moves back and forth with no hesitation or obstruction.Also right behind that vent molding (2 screws) is your heater core.Im assuming you have digital climate control.

[jdq]

Originally Posted by jdq

tHE DOOR FLAPPER (ACTUATOR)is behind glove comp.Take couple screws out of hush panel under glove box to lower down ,take 4 screws out of glove box to take it off and voila ,you will see different color small hoses going to Hvac programmer ,take off and check for any leaks in these vaccuum lines,also check vaccuum lines under hood first they tend to get soft or crack at rubber connectors.Anyways up above Hvac programmer on top of air vent molding you will see a metal bar and that is attached to your flapper door.Turn heat on lower temp for air and see if this metal arm moves back and forth with no hesitation or obstruction.Also right behind that vent molding (2 screws) is your heater core.Im assuming you have digital climate control.

Also check and maybe clean your evaporator,possible blocking blower air.Is your top rad hose hot?

[DonJuane]

I just got done fixing a similar problem. I had a lead given to me, however, in that a GM mechanic told me that a high failure rate in 97's with air direction problems came from where the vacuum harness connects to the HVAC Programmer. (Careful checking on this because I would image that if you don't have a problem here, you might have one after trying to remove the white vacuum harness connector from the HVAC programmer black connector, particularly if the auto is old and been subjected to a lot of heat.)

Regardless, my symptoms were with a full roaring fan at high speed that a slight amount of air came out the windshield and no other vents. I removed the glove compartment and the shield under it (HEY! WATCH THAT AIRBAG CONNECTOR!!! DON'T UNPLUG IT OR ALLOW IT TO SEPARATE IF YOU TRY TO REMOVE IT!!!! THE ONLY WAY TO DETACH IT FROM THE PANEL IS TO PUSH THE LITTLE GRAY NIPPLE BACK UP THROUGH THE SOUND BOARD COVER THAT YOU ARE TRYING TO REMOVE.) I removed the vacuum from the orange tube that was splicing the purple vacuum source line (located before it goes into the harness and into the HVAC Programmer). The source vacuum (with engine running ;-)) into the harness from the vacuum tank tested great (put line up to finger and felt a sharp pulling of skin into the line at which point the engine idle smoothed out - alternate test, check here for 15 inches of vacuum :-).

However I couldn't get the individual lines out of the white harness connector to individually check them (they are probably not supposed to come out). I also could not seem to get the white connector off of the programmer after removing the single attachment nut. The GM mechanic had told me to check this connector for problem "nipples" and sure enough after forcing off the white vacuum harness connector from the HVAC Programmer, I found one of the "nipples" broken.

At that point I was not sure if I broke it when force-removing the harness or if it was broken to begin with, and thus causing my problem. I finally found a tube to use to use my mouth to suck on each one of the vacuum lines. In each instance I heard the actuator move and there was no leak. (This is probably not the approved method of testing :-). I had to make a decision at this point, look for a used programmer at a junkyard or take a chance that this "nipple" was broken before hand. (I was reluctant to pay the $1000 the dealer quoted.)

Before removing the programmer I had observed that the actuator motor on the bottom of the programmer had appeared to be functioning correctly, as were all the numeric indicators from the dash control pannel. I saw the motorized actuator slider move from left to right after I turned the temperature control from 68 to 98. At this point, since "most" of the HVAC programmer's functions appeared to be responding as I would expect, I decided that the HVAC programmer was likely OK and hopefully that the broken "nipple" on the unit occurred before I pried off the harness. I needed to jumper around the (at least for now) broken connector block. (From experience I also know that a break in any vacuum circuit will most of the time cause the whole vacuum system to fail.)

I racked my brain, knowing past difficulties of finding vacuum tubing, but something hit me and on a Sunday I drove down to PetSmart where I picked up a $1.75 roll of TopFin 6' MINI (key word) airline tubing (in the fish aquarium side). I cut the vacuum lines going into both the connectors, those going into the white harness and the programmer black connector (carefull, some of the lines change color; write down what color goes in which side of the connector). The mini airline was perfect for sliding over both sides of the vacuum line to splice them and when I re-installed the HVAC Programmer, the A/C worked perfectly. :-)

[denverssei]

Just performed this connector bypass procedure on my 96 ssei and it works great. Thanks for the help from everyone in this thread

[timwall]

This method of repairing the HVAC programmer is excellent. Used programmers are very likely to have or to develop the same problem during removal and reinstallation (degraded/leaking connector bodies) and are expensive. New programmers are currently $636.00! Use vinyl, not silicone, aquarium airline. Cut the vacuum lines close to the connector and, using one-inch sections of air line, butt the lines together in each splice to preserve the stiffness of the vacuum lines.

[HotZ28]

Originally Posted by timwall

This method of repairing the HVAC programmer is excellent. Used programmers are very likely to have or to develop the same problem during removal and reinstallation (degraded/leaking connector bodies) and are expensive. New programmers are currently $636.00! Use vinyl, not silicone, aquarium airline. Cut the vacuum lines close to the connector and, using one-inch sections of air line, butt the lines together in each splice to preserve the stiffness of the vacuum lines.

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