Lots of black ducting under there. Air flows from right to left. Airmix actuator adjusts how much hot and cold you get. Should be a short actuator arm going into a section of the black plastic. When you move it by hand, you should hear the door moving back and forth (or feel it) unless it'* broken inside.

Best thing you can do is open it up, take pics, and we'll guide you in. There are already many pics of it posted here.


Don't confuse the poor man.

cute

FSM says remove the dash to replace the air mix actuator. Several people have replaced it from under the dash though. Normally, the PCM and HVAC programmer need to be removed but your PCM is under the hood. The idea is to gain enough room under the dash to remove the heater core cover. The actuator lives on the top of the cover. The 97 donor car I disassembled had smaller screws than the 7mm shown in the pics.

When removing the HVAC programmer, you'll see the main electrical connector to disconnect but you can not see the smaller connector at the top that goes directly to the actuator. It plugs in from the top so you need to reach up there to disconnect. It takes some dexterity.

Steve, it'* time to drive over to the mechanics place and drop a little money on him to fix it up. Seems a little too frustrating.

I spoke to Steve earlier today and he said that the ECC display is not blinking. This leads me to believe that it'* not the air mix actuator. Every other actuator failure I've seen has been accompanied by a blinking display. Nevertheless, we want to view the actuator movement to make sure that it is working properly.



Remove the inner glovebox (black fuzzy part) be removing the six 7mm screws. Lift the flap on the bottom in order to pull out from the dash. You can inspect the movent of the actuator using a flashlight and looking through the left hole in the black steel section (left of the barcode sticker about 4" as pictured above)



Here you see the air mix door lever and rod. This is in the full cold position and basically points to the driver'* B pillar. When the ECC is adjusted to full hot, the rod and lever should move smothly aproximately 90* and point to the passenger'* B pillar. Adjust to full cold and hot a couple of times to make sure there is smooth and full movement

Great job Randy

i may need your assitstnace by calling me. i am on my way out to the garage right now. now...where is my flashlight...

thanx randy for your help. i couldnt get to the piece like i wanted to but i did get a hanger witht he white cardboard to stick in the hole and bend it to hold the arm in place to keep it from moving to the right. until i am able to get to it with some decent tools, i wont cut the a/c on until it gets warm again.

To summarize for the others keeping track of this thread, I walked Steve through the visual actuator testing. The arm moved to the right all the way and pointed to the passenger'* B pillar but only moved partially back to the left, pointing about the passenger'* seat. He manually moved the arm further to the left and got some cold air out of the vents but it returned back as soon as it was released.

I asked where the nylon piece met the threaded portion of the rod and he said that it was almost all the way to the right rather than towards the middle as pictured above. I'm thinking that the rod just needs to be adjusted because the ECC is not indicating a fault. Any other thoughts with the new information??

i'll try not to be confusing...but on my car, (i have the same problem) the rod does not stay unlessi set the climate control to either 100% hot or 100% cold...then I can move the rod accordingly...hold it there for a minute or two....then let go...and usually it stays. he may indeed have a rod adjustment problem...i merely wanted to add my two cents worth. as i said earlier, because of the nature of this thread, if this makesthings more confusing, pm me and i'll delete the post