Dash Air conditioner

[luvdoggiez]

Hi there everyone,

Well, there is an issue that we have been chasing for quite some time that we finally figured out. In our particular case, we addressed an issue that we had from the day that we bought this used unit. So, I will state up front that I believe this is a problem that you will see, only when buying a brand new unit, or a used unit, but this problem and resolution will not address an issue you may have during the course of your ownership.

The problem we had, since the day we bought this unit used, was that we could get cold air out of the dash A/C unit, and we could get hot air out of it, but not much in between. We would get Cold air only when using MAX A/C. When we were on Vent, the dash would render hot air. When we were on regular A/C, we would get warm air.

What we found out the problem was, that the blend-door and the controller motor were in-correctly oriented. If the door is rotated down, cool air flows across the A/C evaporator and then across the heater core. The intent of the design is that the Control motor moves the door up to control the flow of the amount of air that flows to the heater core. The motor would not move the door up. What I found when removing the motor, I found the control motor only has a rotational travel of about 90 degrees, corresponding with what the door is intended to do. What I also found out was that the door was in the down position for maximum heat. The motor was in the up position for maximum cooling. When the Dash is set to the MAX A/C position, the hot water to the heater core is turned off, so we would get COLD air.

So, what we did, was after removing the control motor, we turned on the dash AC and turned the temperature control knob slowly to 'Hot', then to 'Cold' and then back to 'Hot' again. Once the control motor finished turning to the hot position, we re-attached it to the square control shaft for the Blend-door. We found this resolved our issue.

I would suggest that once you have removed the control motor (A flat triangular shaped device) , that you check to make sure it is operating correctly as you turn on the AC and adjust the temperature knob on the dash, you should find the gear on the control motor moves. Also, using a pair of vice grips, try turning the shaft for the blend-door. The door is a little heavy, so it takes a little effort to turn it Clock-wise.

Hopefully, your problem will be this easy (and cheap) to fix. 🙂

Happy camping! Eric and Carol Anderson