Were did you disconnect the hose from?

Did we ever determine if you have a valve in the heater hose that controls the coolant flow?

 

Heres an update . I now have heat !!!!

The water pump impellor was rusted off AND the new thermostat was stuck open.
I replaced both and now I have heat. Thanks for all the great info over the past few weeks. I couldn't have done it with out you guys !!!!

 

Glad to hear you got it fixed, you really stuck with it!!!

 

Yeah , I've got more time than money. And , its starting to get COLD in Mississippi !

 

The blend door on my daughter has broken. I tried the quick fix but it won't work on this one. The door hinge post actually broke about 1.5" down from the top. I still have the "D" shaped piece and it is still "D" shaped but it is completely disconnected from the door itself. Door way just laying down in the plenum.

I've take a different route. At the glove box door I cut a large acess hole in the front of the heater box assembly that I can get my hand into, and the door in and out of. I got the door out and the top of the door hing post with the female "D"D piece that broke off entirely from the door. (I'll post pictures of the carnage later).

I am going to try to locate another blend door that is not broken and attempt to re-install. Hole can be covered with a gasketed piece of sheetmetal or I can make a cover from another Heater box and gasket it. Not too worried about looks since it will be hidden up under the dash behind the glove box.

Has anybody done this? Is there a problem that others have run into doing this? Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Carl

 

Sounds like a plan. Keep is posted.

 

I may be way off base here, but I just found a 'super glue' that may work on plastic that was previously un-glueable. It is a super glue that is a 2-part system. The first is a 'cleaner/prep' that makes the surface glueable. The second is, apparently, regular super glue. It does work on plastics that you could not glue before. Might be worth a try.
tom

 

Tom,

Appreciate the input. I actually thought about trying to go that route but I want the overidng factor in my decision on how to repair is to make certain it's fixed permanantly (5 years +) so that I only have to do this once. I have concerns regarding the ability of any glue to withstand the sustained high temperatures in the heater plenum. Also, these doors break with out being glued. If they are glued, the old fracture will create stress risers that I'm afraid will lead to another failure. Also, I'm missing a small chunk that broke off, so glueing cannot bring back full integrity.

I've thought about scabbing a used door in a bone yard but no telling how long until that one breaks. I'm thinking about purchasing a "new door only" if it is available from Ford. Cost may drive me back to the bone yard but if the plenum is only a $100.00, the door can't be too bad. I will post my end result. Again, thank you for the idea. I've still got some work to do on the access hole.

 

I doubt you'd find a yard willing to sell you the door on it's own. It would render the plenum useless, as I don't think you can get just the door from Ford. Please take a look though, it would be interesting to know if they do sell it.

I believe that the door could also be accessed from the other side of the firewall instead of cutting open the plenum, although it might be necessary to evacuate the AC and some other things.

-Jim

 

I found a yard willing to sell me just the door. They wanted $25.00 for it. Heater plenum was already busted and I could see it laying in there, undamaged. All they had to do was reach in a grab it. No disassembly required. Still they wanted $25.00 for it. No thanks - too much money.

Found another one willing to sell me just the blend door. They couldn't get it out of the heater plenum, it was close to closing time on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. They just gave me the whole heater plenum. Cost - $13.00. Now we're talking.

I tried but was not able to remove the blend door from the good plenum without damaging it so I opted for the big fix. Replace the whole plenum.

The directions provide at the beginning of this thread were extremely helpful. It wasn't that bad of a job, at least nothing close to as bad as I had imagined. I started around 12:00pm had everything out and the replacement heater plenum and dash in back place by 3:00pm. Ran errands with the wife for about two hours, came home and finished it by around 8:00 with dinner mixed in there.

Below are pictues of the damage to mine and more pictures of a good heater plenum outside of the vehicle. It may be of some interest to those contemplating the quick fix or just trying to asess their own damage. It gives a good shot of the what the top of the blend door looks like. It would have helped me as I could not tell much from the picture taken through the mirror in the quick fix thread.



Above is a picture of the carnage from my blend door. I found it laying in the bottom of the plenum. Quick fix was not going to help me.



This is a shot of the broken off top post from the blend door mounted back on the actuator so you can see how they interface.



The round thing in the middle towards the top of the picture is what you are attempting to view with a mirror when doing the quick fix. This is from the replacement heater plenum. It took me quite a while to figure out why I could not see the "D" shaped piece with the mirror on the old one when I was trying to do the quick fix. I later discovered that I was not able to see it because it wasn't there. As stated above, the blend door was laying in the bottom of the plenum.



This is what the blend door would look like if you could see through the firewall. In this shot, the blend door is directly flow across the heater core, so this would be the all hot air position of yours was stuck.

Note the three posts/studs you see in this picture. They are referenced in the directions earlier in this thread. The two on the right are the ones with the two nuts, one on either side of the AC box. The one to the left is the one that is hidden behind the AC box when everything is installed. I almost forgot to put the nut on that stud when I installed mine.


Another top view of the heater plenum, this time looking at it as if you were standing outside the truck at the passenger door.



Another look form above. Pretty close to the angle you would be viewing from while sitting in the front seat without the dash in your way to obstruct the view.

Anyway, thought that I would provide some pictures since I did not have any when I did this and thought it would have been helpful if I did.

Once again, thank you Jim (PSKSAM2) for the instructions. They were a tremendous help and you are a good and fine FTE citizen. I can't thank you enough. I really appreciate you taking the time to put this together back when yours broke.

 

texan,

Glad to hear you got it back together. That's some good finds at the boneyards. I would have bought the $25 one just to have a spare. I'm amazingly surprised that they sold it separately.

It's clear now looking at the photo why the quick fix didn't work for you. The door broke well below the point of contact with the actuator. Ever since I worked on mine, I've been very careful about not cranking the temp dial hard over to either side. It might not prevent it, but I figure it's worth a try.

No problem on the instructions. You've added quite a bit, if not more to the knowledge base.

Hope you had a good truck fixin' Thanksgiving!

-Jim

 

Glad to hear you got it fixed and THANKS for the great pics.

 

Can anyone tell me if Headlight switch needs to be removed to replace blend door and how.

Also dash seems free except for middle section. Ar ethere some hidden bolts?

Also Does dash pull straight back or do you lift up and back?

 

The headlight switch will need to be unplugged but does not need to be removed.

It's probably just hung up in the middle. Toguh to say without being there. If you follow the directions that were posted closely, thre is a tough to locate bolt beneath the dash.

Don't recall exactly how it pulled out but I did have to encourage it a bit.

Are you using the posted instructions? I found them to be very helpful.

 

Thanks for the great pictures they are a big help.

Which one of your vehicles was this on? Was it the 97 Ranger?

I have one that has a broken blend door & I just ordered a brand new door on ebay for $18.

I was thinking about cutting a hole in the front of the heater plenum like you did. Then try the trick below to get the door in. Are there any problems with blockages inside the plenum? This sounds like the way to go.

On 03-06-2006, 10:13 PM Port Monster posted to
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 border=0><TBODY><TR vAlign=bottom><TD></TD><TD></TD><TD width="100%">Ford Truck Enthusiasts Forums > Small Chassis Trucks > Explorer, Sport Trac, Mountaineer & Aviator</TD></TR><TR><TD class=navbar style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; PADDING-TOP: 1px" colSpan=3> Free Blend Door Fix</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
that you can use a screw driver to force the plenum haves apart enough to get the blend door in. He removed and inserted the door from a hole he made in the bottom of the plenum.

Here was his advice:
"I will share the trick I used to get the blend door in to give the next person another option. You are right that getting the two ends of the door into the corresponding holes is a nightmare (I used nightmare as I don't think I can cuss on this site). So I cut a hole on the face of the plenum (right behind the golve box in the top left quadrant). When you look into the hole you see that the plenum is actually a two piece box glued/welded together on the outside. Inside is a verticle divider in the middle runing right about where the top and bottom holes for the blend door are. Stick a regular screw driver into the spot where the two halfs of this divider meet, twist just a little, and you have enough room to get the blend door into the correct spots. Once you let go you have a fit as good as the OEM"

From your experience do you think it will work?

Thanks