HVAC Actuators: Do Them All Proactively

[CTX-SLPR]

Howdy,

Been troubleshooting my AC and narrowed it down to a failed heater valve and blend door so the heater would run at the same time as the AC making for all sorts of conflicting data. While I was in there cleaning the evaporator core I found the recirc door doesn't fully close so that's two of the four actuators (correct me if I'm wrong on the count) that need replacement. Best i can tell the rear one is just fine and the mode door seems to work just fine. Should I just buy all of them and knock them out?

Thanks

 

[yevgenievich]

All the ones that need dash removal for replacement

 

[AK49BWL]

There are only 3 actuators, Mode, Temp, and Recirc. Recirc goes out most often due to the way the controller works with it - there's no feedback circuit so the head just commands it "ON" in whichever desired direction for 20 seconds after hitting the recirc button. This also happens EVERY POWER CYCLE as well, for no reason I can understand. Due to this, either the motor inside the actuator will burn out, or the gears will break. Temperature door actuator goes bad mostly because the temperature door is not counterweighted, so the gears end up being severely stressed when switching between cool and heat, eventually the gears end up breaking. Mode actuators don't really have any of these problems, more commonly what happens is the two extensions from the actuator that control the face and windshield vents will lose the springs or their retainers, which will cause the face and/or defrost vent doors to stay in one place no matter where you want it. That's actually a really easy fix if you can find the pieces lol. All of them can be replaced without dropping the dash - dropping it just makes getting the temperature actuator out quite a bit easier. Getting the recirc actuator out without having to pull the entire HVAC box? Now that's the trick.