Hi,
I am needing to replace my broken blend door. How did you fix the door without taking off the dash? My email is r.j.holloway at sbcglobal dot net. I am going to start tomorrow but if there is a quick and dirty fix I am all for it.

 

I put this in a new thread to give it a little more exposure - moderator

 

Mr. Marine,

You should have a note coming your way.

Tex

 

Maybe I'm missing something here..............but what is a "blend" door?

 

Geroge,

I think that his broken blend door is on a Ford Ranger. I replied with an e-mail with the link to the quick fix for this on the Ranger forum. I still owe him some pictures and will get this done tonight.

 

LEckart, me and probably 600 other guys still want to know what the heck a "blend door" is!

 

It is what opens and closes to regulate the air flow in the heater box between cold air (vent and/or AC) and hot air (Heater). It's postiion is electronically/vacuum/cable (depends on model and year vehicle) controlled by the Hot/Cold control on the dash. In my partular instance, it is in a 97 Ford Ranger and electronically controlled by a small actuator. The door is plastic and the interface between the actuator and the door usually fails on the door.

When these things break you either get hot air all of the time or cold air all of the time. Bottom line, you have no control of air temperature. My daughter's is getting cold air all of the time. Bad time of year for this as would be all hot air in the summer.

It is a very common failure on early to mid 90's Rangers, Explorers, and for whatever reason E-series vans. Also occasionally happens on F-150's of the same vintage.

It can be a 15 minute fix if it breaks the right way. Mine broke the wrong way and hence, I'm looking at what is extimated to be a 10 hour job for a Ford Tech at a cost of over $1000.00 to repair. For a hack like me, it's probably going to consume the rest of the weekend and some of next week to get done. Requires removing the entire dash to get the heater plenum out and replace it.

Hope this explains it. There is quite a bit of colorful discussion of the problem on the Explorer and Ranger Forums. I tried to keep my comments black and white.

 

And that is why I like these old Ford Trucks, nice and simple and easy to fix!

abe

 

I think earl should move this to the correct forum. Yeah, the blend door fix is expensive if you pay a stearlership. There are a few shortcuts if you read the threads. I am guessing its probably an explorer, but as texan mentions the ranger breaks some too. There was a recall for some models/years.

BTW: I drive one of the explorers. LOL (not sure if '01 is in the group, but I think it is).

 

OK, the "blend door" reference makes sense now but why was it on this forum????? Oh well, at least I know what it is and can stop searching my truck for a blend door.

 

In that case: Yes, your truck had one from the factory. It is apparently broken or possibly removed by the previous owner. It must be repaired/replaced at once or your truck will self destruct on the 13th of December.



Thuthfully, I have no clue how it ended up here. Earl/george moved it from somewhere in another thread maybe???? (I am guesing by his post.)

 

Once upon a time, there was a thread titled something along the lines of "What are you going to be doing to your truck over the Thanksgiving Holiday". Some dumb guy from Texas remarked about a couple of plans for his old truck but mistakenly mentioned (off-handidly) that it would all depend on whether or not he got the "blend door" in his daughter's Ranger fixed.

Well, turns out one other poster on the thread had just helped his buddy do this exact same job the previous weekend on a F-150. Then yet another poster mentioned that he had the exact same problem and was intneding on fixing it this wekend. He even posted his e-mail in FTE code form asking for some help off line. The dumb Texan replied off line through personal e-mail.

Then a beloved and well-respected Forum moderator (I won't identify Earl - Errr - George here by name - ooops guess I just did) saw it in the Thanksgiving thread and perhaps thought a blend door was something unique to them old-timey F's with out enough #'s after the F. Other possibility was he just saw broken door and not blend door. In any case, he pulled it out of the Thanksgiving thread and set it up as a brand new thread.

So that my friends is the short story on how a 97 Ranger Heater blend door ended up with it's own theread in the 1948-60 forum. Let this be a lesson to any of you even thinking about straying from Forum guidleines. Sorry for any confusion. This was all my fault and I still don't have the darn blend door fixed.

A dumb Texan.

 

Hey Texan and Brian_B, I'm confused 90% of the time (according to the wife). I even read the thread where you (Texan) mentioned your daughters Ranger but like most everything else I let it go in and out and never tied the threads together. Thanks for the explanations. At least now I know what a "blend door" is and that I don't have one. And as for Earl, I'm not about to challenge such an esteemed Moderator. Thanks again.

 

Texan,

Ditto 100% what LEckart just said.

Look at it this way - at least if anyone in here ever contemplates using a more recent/later model heater in the 48-60, I'm pretty sure they now know not use one with a"blend door"

So did perform a public service here.

 

Texan got it zactly right. I figgered the posted originally meant to say "bent" door or something similar. Now I knows better. Learn something new every day - even if I don't want to.