Ever since the battery went dead in my car the heater hasn't worked right. The outside temperature flashes on the dash for a few seconds and so does the temperature readout on the auto climate control feature when you turn it on. Sometimes the heat works as it should , and other times you cant get it to work no matter what you do. I know it has something to do with the computer or the automatic climate control. Sometimes if it is not working, you can shut the car off and wait a couple minutes and then restart it and it will work. This is about to drive me nuts!! Anybody had this problem? I have tried killing the power to the computer in an effort to reset it, but that didn't work. Thanks in advance


Moved to 92-99 section -Todd

You will need to check your air mix actuator.



Toddster might be able to help you more

Is the Actuator controlled by Vacuum or Electronically? It just seems weird that this all started after the battery went dead.

Toddster knows far more about this area then I do. He'* the guy to ask.

Sounds like you have a crack in your airmix actuator gear.
Probably a small crack which would explain the intermittent problem. It will get worse and eventually stay on full cold or full hot depending on the default settings.

So your next step is going to pull out your glove box liner. Should only be but a few screws holding in the glove box liner.

Now look for the small hole on the left of the dash support. Shine a light down there and turn on the car and move the temp control from all the way cold to hot and then back again. Do you see the arm moving?

If not than:

You will have to check this manually for airmix gear condition.
Look through the small hole on the left of the dash support shine a light down there and you will find the top of the airmix actuator. Look to where the metal blend door arm clips in the white airmix arm. Get yourself a long skinny screw driver and pop off the metal blend door arm from the airmix arm. Once the two are separated grab hold of the white arm and see if you can move it freely from left to right. If you can than you for sure have a crack in the gear and this has to be replaced.

Let us know what you find.

Here is some photos for reference:

glove box liner:



liner taken out...look through the hole on the left:



The little hole on the left:

Long read but will help to:
https://www.gmforum.com/t278411/

here is the full directions on how to replace the actuator if needed:
http://trialsnuts.com/ecc.pdf

here is how you recalibrate the arm of the airmix actuator once replaced:

Its electronically controlled.

When the battery is disconnected sometimes the gear in the air mix actuator meshes incorrectly with the other gear and brakes when you reconnect the battery. It cycles back and forth in normal operation upon start up of the car. When the gear brakes the A/C controller reads a fault and puts out a visual on the display making the display blink every time you start the car.

Tech tip on avoiding this in the future would be to turn off the A/C system before disconnecting the battery. This way when you reconnect the battery the air mix actuator will already be in the correct position.

Thanks for all of the info, I will try and take a look at it this weekend and let you know what I find. Thanks again!!!