Heater Controls...

[johncelliot]

Hello all - I have a problem with the heating system in my van. It is a 1987 w/ a 2.1 engine. It seems that the sliders that contol the heater don't do anything. It is permanently set such that the heat is all the way hot, and the air is blowing from the defrost. Also, the bottom/foot vent is always open. The controls for the temperature and vent direction are there, but they don't do anything, and the control for the bottom vent is missing. The control for fan speed works fine.

Has anyone disassembled this stuff? Any idea what I will need to get this stuff working? Thanks for the help.

JCE

[OLD ONE]

johncelliot
I striped my lot down last year. Bit of a pig. My heater motor had packed up..As I remember I had to remove the dash complete, then the cover over the heater to get to every thing. But like a nut that I am I got the heater and vent cables mixed up .Now none of the controls do as thy are meant to So be warned.
No doubt someone brighter than me will come up with the correct solution.

[strangely brown]

Hi John, just done mine, what i did is removed the plastic heater shroud, and found that someone else with heavy hands had forced it back on for what ever reason. This had resulted in the plastic ducting which house the heater control flaps were jamming the flaps, resulting in same person forcing the lever over and bending the heater cable itself, what i did was repaired the ducting as best as i could in order to get it back into shape, but the flaps were still getting stuck on the join. So i removed the flaps and bar assembly, and with a file took off a bit of metal on both sides, and kept re-offering and filing until the flaps moved freely from closed through to open. Retrieved the bent part of the cable with the control facia removed, straightened it and re-connected it. When it came time to replace the heater shroud i put some copper-slip grease on the flap bar and also in the plastic channels which guide the shroud back into place.

S.B.

[johncelliot]

Hey SB - It sounds like you were able to gain access to all of the controls and cables by removing the "heater shroud". Is that the big plastic cover under the dash in the middle? Also, it seems like my control cables might be missing completely! Any ideas about what I could use to replace the cables if that is the case? Thanks for the help.

JCE

[strangely brown]

Yes John the big plastic panel under the dash is the shroud, you can also pull off the plastic heater control handels and fan control knob, then gently prise off the control facia. If you get hold of C.J. at Syncrospares im sure he would have a set of cables and levers if not Russell or Ian at Syncro nutz tel no: 01501 829400 or07732 098577

hope this helps

SB

[johncelliot]

I was able to look at my heater over the weekend. Turns out that the temperature control, and the vent direction control are both working as they are supposed to (it helped to OPEN the front facing dash vents). The cable for the foot vent is indeed broken, so I will have to track down a replacement. It does look like the cable could be replaced without removing the whole dash, but it will be a bit of a challenge.

thanks for the help.

John

[strangely brown]

just undo the cable at both ends, and then with electricians tape, tape the bottom end of old cable to top end of new cable and gently pull out the old cable, new cable will have to follow.