Blend Door Actuator (heating and cooling)

[rlbuzz]

That's the same video that I watched earlier. At the very end of the video he shows the actuator motor actually operating and shows how the arms move to adjust the blend door. On my Jeep, even when I adjust the temperature control to jump from heater to AC the arms do not move at all. The arms on my Jeep are in the exact position that he describes as the AC position. That's why in my case at least, I'm pretty sure that the blend door actuator motor has gone bad.
In your situation where you're getting heat but there is a big difference between the temperature from the driver side to the passenger side, I'm not sure. There is no dual zone adjustment in a Wrangler that I'm aware of. It's hard to account for the temperature difference unless the blend door is somehow out of adjustment and isn't allowing full heat and the temperature difference is because the warm air has to travel further to get to the driver side. Luckily you're still under warranty. On my 2012 with less than 15,000 miles, my warranty has expired because it's over 3 years old. Good luck and if you get it fixed, please post it.

 

[rlbuzz]

Just updating. With much colder weather being forecasted for later this week, I thought I'd take advantage of the decent weather and dive into the blend door problem that I've been having with my 2012 Rubicon with climate control. Just to refresh, all dash functions work, all vents can be adjusted, everything works except no heat, anywhere.
I replaced the blend door actuator motor on the drivers side of the dash. Actually it wasn't that big of a job. There's not much room to work, and I found out there are definitely a lot of sharp edges under the dash. After removing the trim panel under the steering column, the only other things that needed to be removed were the 4 X 6 plate (2 bolts), a plastic body controller mounted vertically by 2 screws, and the floor air vent which was by far the hardest part to remove. The vent is not attached by any screws or fasteners, it simply pushes on to the air box under the dash. I found it easier to take the vent off in 2 pieces. It is split into 2 separate pieces that lock together. When separated the vent is noticeable thinner which helps to maneuver it out from under the dash. There was also a vertical reinforcement that was attached with 2 bolts that I also removed. Once those were removed it was tight, but relatively easy to remove the 2 screws holding the motor in place and then remove the electrical plug. With that, the actuator motor motor with arm can be maneuvered out. After removing the arm (it just pulls off) and installing it on the new motor being careful to get it in the same position, it's just reversing the steps to install.
Now when I switch from AC to heat I can see the arms on the actuator motor moving and the flap diverts air as it should. After a 10 minute drive to warm things up, I measured 162 degree heat coming equally from all vents. I recorded a maximum of about 172 degrees at one point.
So if anyone is experiencing a problem with no heat at all, but all other heater and vent functions work, I would suggest checking out the air blend door actuator motor.
Thanks to everyone who chimed in on this relatively common problem with Jeeps, it definitely helped.

 

[kcdee00]

Just updating. With much colder weather being forecasted for later this week, I thought I'd take advantage of the decent weather and dive into the blend door problem that I've been having with my 2012 Rubicon with climate control. Just to refresh, all dash functions work, all vents can be adjusted, everything works except no heat, anywhere.
I replaced the blend door actuator motor on the drivers side of the dash. Actually it wasn't that big of a job. There's not much room to work, and I found out there are definitely a lot of sharp edges under the dash. After removing the trim panel under the steering column, the only other things that needed to be removed were the 4 X 6 plate (2 bolts), a plastic body controller mounted vertically by 2 screws, and the floor air vent which was by far the hardest part to remove. The vent is not attached by any screws or fasteners, it simply pushes on to the air box under the dash. I found it easier to take the vent off in 2 pieces. It is split into 2 separate pieces that lock together. When separated the vent is noticeable thinner which helps to maneuver it out from under the dash. There was also a vertical reinforcement that was attached with 2 bolts that I also removed. Once those were removed it was tight, but relatively easy to remove the 2 screws holding the motor in place and then remove the electrical plug. With that, the actuator motor motor with arm can be maneuvered out. After removing the arm (it just pulls off) and installing it on the new motor being careful to get it in the same position, it's just reversing the steps to install.
Now when I switch from AC to heat I can see the arms on the actuator motor moving and the flap diverts air as it should. After a 10 minute drive to warm things up, I measured 162 degree heat coming equally from all vents. I recorded a maximum of about 172 degrees at one point.
So if anyone is experiencing a problem with no heat at all, but all other heater and vent functions work, I would suggest checking out the air blend door actuator motor.
Thanks to everyone who chimed in on this relatively common problem with Jeeps, it definitely helped.

Mine did the same thing as yours and I replaced the drivers side actuator first to no avail. Ended up having the heater core replaced and all is well.

 

[kcdee00]

Just updating. With much colder weather being forecasted for later this week, I thought I'd take advantage of the decent weather and dive into the blend door problem that I've been having with my 2012 Rubicon with climate control. Just to refresh, all dash functions work, all vents can be adjusted, everything works except no heat, anywhere.
I replaced the blend door actuator motor on the drivers side of the dash. Actually it wasn't that big of a job. There's not much room to work, and I found out there are definitely a lot of sharp edges under the dash. After removing the trim panel under the steering column, the only other things that needed to be removed were the 4 X 6 plate (2 bolts), a plastic body controller mounted vertically by 2 screws, and the floor air vent which was by far the hardest part to remove. The vent is not attached by any screws or fasteners, it simply pushes on to the air box under the dash. I found it easier to take the vent off in 2 pieces. It is split into 2 separate pieces that lock together. When separated the vent is noticeable thinner which helps to maneuver it out from under the dash. There was also a vertical reinforcement that was attached with 2 bolts that I also removed. Once those were removed it was tight, but relatively easy to remove the 2 screws holding the motor in place and then remove the electrical plug. With that, the actuator motor motor with arm can be maneuvered out. After removing the arm (it just pulls off) and installing it on the new motor being careful to get it in the same position, it's just reversing the steps to install.
Now when I switch from AC to heat I can see the arms on the actuator motor moving and the flap diverts air as it should. After a 10 minute drive to warm things up, I measured 162 degree heat coming equally from all vents. I recorded a maximum of about 172 degrees at one point.
So if anyone is experiencing a problem with no heat at all, but all other heater and vent functions work, I would suggest checking out the air blend door actuator motor.
Thanks to everyone who chimed in on this relatively common problem with Jeeps, it definitely helped.

Glad yours was just the actuator.... I wasn't that lucky.
Mine did the same thing as yours and I replaced the drivers side actuator first to no avail. Ended up having the heater core replaced and all is well.

 

[Mattyg04]

Having a similar issue. 2013 JK Sport. Flushed heater core 3 times this week. No sand or sludge in resi or anywhere else. Heat just doesnt get very hot. Kind of luke warm. Fan blows hard. It's been -25 here in Edmonton. I removed my glove box and can see the blend door work (switching air to floor, defrost, vents..). My questiom is I do not have AC option in my sport so is there a blend door on my drivers side as well? I recently purchased the JK used so I don't know if this was a problem last winter. My buddy has the same JK and his heat is noticably hotter. Any ideas?

 

[rlbuzz]

You can check to see if you have a blend door on the driver's side by looking up under your dash. Locate the outlet for the heater floor vent on the driver's side. You should see it at the lower edge of the dash just to the left of the center console. Once you locate the vent outlet look under the dash and look at the vent itself. Just to the right of the vent you should see a small gap between the vent and the transmission hump and the center lower console. In that small opening you should be able to look up and see 2 white arms about 4 or 5 inches long. When you change the temperature setting you should see these arms move. They are moved by an electric motor in the blend door actuator and it's job is to regulate the amount of hot air entering. If those arms are not moving, it's my guess that the motor in the actuator has gone out or possibly the plastic gears in the actuator itself have failed.
If that's the case it's a relatively easy job to replace the approximately $30 blend door actuator motor. It's a tight squeeze but it can be done once you remove the plastic kick plate beneath the steering wheel, a metal shield behind it, the floor vent, and move a black electrical box so that you can access the motor. The motor itself is held in by 2 screws and has one electrical connector. It's a tight fit and watch for sharp edges on the metal braces, but it can be done.
My 2012 JK has AC, but even without AC you should still have a blend door on the driver's side to regulate the heater temperature by blending heated air with cool air from the outside.
I would start by first locating the white arms on the actuator and make sure that they move when you adjust the temperature from cold to hot. If they don't then the actuator motor is probably defective. The motor that you mentioned that you found on the passenger side to the left of the glove box controls the various vents and directs air to the vents you select. It sounds like from your description that this is working. The motor on the driver's side looks exactly the same as the motor on the passenger side.

 

[Mattyg04]

You can check to see if you have a blend door on the driver's side by looking up under your dash. Locate the outlet for the heater floor vent on the driver's side. You should see it at the lower edge of the dash just to the left of the center console. Once you locate the vent outlet look under the dash and look at the vent itself. Just to the right of the vent you should see a small gap between the vent and the transmission hump and the center lower console. In that small opening you should be able to look up and see 2 white arms about 4 or 5 inches long. When you change the temperature setting you should see these arms move. They are moved by an electric motor in the blend door actuator and it's job is to regulate the amount of hot air entering. If those arms are not moving, it's my guess that the motor in the actuator has gone out or possibly the plastic gears in the actuator itself have failed.
If that's the case it's a relatively easy job to replace the approximately $30 blend door actuator motor. It's a tight squeeze but it can be done once you remove the plastic kick plate beneath the steering wheel, a metal shield behind it, the floor vent, and move a black electrical box so that you can access the motor. The motor itself is held in by 2 screws and has one electrical connector. It's a tight fit and watch for sharp edges on the metal braces, but it can be done.
My 2012 JK has AC, but even without AC you should still have a blend door on the driver's side to regulate the heater temperature by blending heated air with cool air from the outside.
I would start by first locating the white arms on the actuator and make sure that they move when you adjust the temperature from cold to hot. If they don't then the actuator motor is probably defective. The motor that you mentioned that you found on the passenger side to the left of the glove box controls the various vents and directs air to the vents you select. It sounds like from your description that this is working. The motor on the driver's side looks exactly the same as the motor on the passenger side.

Thanks for the info. Ill try this tomorrow with an update. I do get cold air when i turn the temp setting to cold and "warm" air when I turn it to heat. It's just luke warm though. Maybe its not opening all the way. Hopefully it's not the heater core. Its 3 yrs old now so itll be on my dime :/
I did flush it 3 times last week n it seems ok.

 

[lulu2533]

Just saw this thread after posting a heater question. My '13's heater is not working properly. Lot"s of good info here.

Question for those of you that had your heater core replaced...how much did it cost?

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[Mattyg04]

Just saw this thread after posting a heater question. My '13's heater is not working properly. Lot"s of good info here.

Question for those of you that had your heater core replaced...how much did it cost?

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Don't quote me but I think on another forum I read $1600 US. I'm in Canada so over 2g. From what I gather the core itself is not costly but it's the labor. Think the heater core is around $300 give or take. I beliebe the dadh has to be removed. Someone else can chime in. I'm just going by memory

 

[USMC Wrangler]

Pretty much everything from the late 90's on requires complete removal of the dash. Gotta love those engineers. (1999 F-150 cost $950 p&l for a heater core)


.......................................................................
Overall "build thread"
http://wayalife.com/showthread.php?26097-I-guess-it-s-the-quot-Super-Stocker-quot-build

DIY trail/tube door build http://wayalife.com/showthread.php?24449-My-DIY-Doors

 

[deezus]

if you have the auto-climate control then you'll have no control when you switch from cold to warm/hot.

I had it on my GC and it was the worst feature, just as it would get warm the AC would kick in and freeze us all out then the heater would bake us as it tried to balance the climate to the settings (never successfully worked). I forget what I did to disable the auto-climate, it had a manual setting but the auto-climate would override it. I found the fuse and pulled it to get full manual control over the system.

I have a 2103 JKUR which only works on completely hot or completely cold, could this be a blown fuse? Ive had the Actuator changed by the dealership before weeing this thread....

 

[William Thrasher]

I just repaired my blend door actuator. It wasn't as difficult as I originally made it out to be. It is on the driver side underneath the panel by your right knee. After removing the plastic panel and the metal panel below it. There is a black box that needs to be removed also with the plastic bracket. There are two screws associated with that. Also there is a vent pipe that is plastic that I removed also for the lower vents. Which just pulled out easily. Then it was a piece of cake to replace the actuator.

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Thanks for the help! I'm gonna attempt this with mine as it's only blowing heat out the passenger side. It's crazy cause if I shut off the passenger window vent and leave the other 3 open the temp coming out the 3 gets cooler. It's 20 degrees this morning I'm gonna need heat ASAP!


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[Firewalker918]

2009 with no heat. On cold days

I have a 09 Jk that has little to no heat on cold days. In the 60s or higher it has more heat than you can stand. I had the radiator and heater core flushed at a local shop. Not sure if it was done properly due to no change in the heat.

I pulled out the glove box and see a cable actuated White blend door mechanism. There is no small black electronic box like in photos on one of the threads.

IS there something I am missing? IS the blend door on the drivers side? Is the heater core bad? What's your thoughts?
I would like to have heat on these cold days....


Many thanks
Fire

 

[hughesma]

Just updating. With much colder weather being forecasted for later this week, I thought I'd take advantage of the decent weather and dive into the blend door problem that I've been having with my 2012 Rubicon with climate control. Just to refresh, all dash functions work, all vents can be adjusted, everything works except no heat, anywhere.
I replaced the blend door actuator motor on the drivers side of the dash. Actually it wasn't that big of a job. There's not much room to work, and I found out there are definitely a lot of sharp edges under the dash. After removing the trim panel under the steering column, the only other things that needed to be removed were the 4 X 6 plate (2 bolts), a plastic body controller mounted vertically by 2 screws, and the floor air vent which was by far the hardest part to remove. The vent is not attached by any screws or fasteners, it simply pushes on to the air box under the dash. I found it easier to take the vent off in 2 pieces. It is split into 2 separate pieces that lock together. When separated the vent is noticeable thinner which helps to maneuver it out from under the dash. There was also a vertical reinforcement that was attached with 2 bolts that I also removed. Once those were removed it was tight, but relatively easy to remove the 2 screws holding the motor in place and then remove the electrical plug. With that, the actuator motor motor with arm can be maneuvered out. After removing the arm (it just pulls off) and installing it on the new motor being careful to get it in the same position, it's just reversing the steps to install.
Now when I switch from AC to heat I can see the arms on the actuator motor moving and the flap diverts air as it should. After a 10 minute drive to warm things up, I measured 162 degree heat coming equally from all vents. I recorded a maximum of about 172 degrees at one point.
So if anyone is experiencing a problem with no heat at all, but all other heater and vent functions work, I would suggest checking out the air blend door actuator motor.
Thanks to everyone who chimed in on this relatively common problem with Jeeps, it definitely helped.

I did just find this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXvpr3j42cg

At least now I know what I'm looking for. Found another vid of a guy temping his vents. I wish I had the temps he's complaining about! It did make me realize though... on bi-level, my passenger side dash vent is maybe blowing 110-115, where the drivers side is 90-100. So maybe the core isn't getting heat?

But I'll see if I can witness that big white mechanism moving. Or better yet... stuff one of the kids up under there to look for me! :thumb:

But as the "repair" is warranted for 2yrs/24k... my dealer's usual "repair" is to flush... so maybe I go get one just for giggles. I can complain more, but all if the complaining in the past didn't work, and I'm now +60k (just barely)

I had the clicking noise each time I opened the driver's door on my JK. It was clearly the blend door actuator malfunctioning. The above posts helped enormously in replacing the actuator. It is a fairly simple job once the air vent is removed as you can see the white arms linking to the blend door. I connected the white arms with full heat on so that the linkage is connected to the actuator in the correct position. Thanks to everyone that posted!

 

[Thupten palgon]

I am having the same problem just getting cold air from all the vents. I am going to try to figure it out this weekend with the blend door wish me luck.


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[Thupten palgon]

So I ended up takin it to the dealer ship and my problem was oil filter adapter is cracked and coolant was leaking. If that helps anyone with their problem.


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[lamo8282]

after replacing the actuator, how do you get the white arm back in the proper position? I can't even see where the white arm pin goes

 

[lamo8282]

I replaced both actuators and now the clicking is even worse. Do the actuators need to be reset? If so, how?

 

[rmilobrown]

I have a 2015 JKUR that just lost heat control. I fixed it with a new blend door actuator. I had a heck of a time getting the motor and arm in alignment with the door lever and heat setting! Can anyone tell me the best way to do this and how the motor circuit works.

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[rmilobrown]

Hey Iamo, I learned some things after I fixed my Jeep. First I hooked up the bda without mounting it and ran the temp dial from hot to cold. I thought I needed to align the motor position and arm. After I installed it, the rear defrost light was blinking. That turns out to be Blend door calibration ( automatically tells the controller when to stop full hot and cold) You would not be the first to get a bad motor out of the box. These bda's are true CHICOM junk! Many have successfully opened the motor and reassembled or rotated a broken toothed gear. Happytrails

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