Hello all.
After 4 months of fiddling I've finally gotten my Japanese import 3.6 back on the road. This including repairing the blowers and regassing the aircon which, after some other small disasters, now works! Well, kind of. My centre vent is permanently open because the vacuum solenoid died and I just wedged a stick in there. But the passenger side (left in Australia) vent blows very very weakly, and there is a small amount of air going to the screen on the left also. Would I be right in guess one of the flaps isn't closing/opening properly somewhere in the control box? Screwdriver tap fix? I can hear motors whirring if I select heat, and it seems to get redirected appropriately.

As a side not, my aircon isn't really that cold. R134 conversion, but has laid dormant for some time. Old compressor or clogged evaporator?

 

Since no one else has commented yet, I'll put my 2 cents- or less- in. I would check that left blower and make sure it is actually working. Rumor has it the pair Both have to be working for proper flow. Seems like a silly set up to me. If the center vent has to be propped open and others don't appear to be working properly, it might be worth a look if maybe the solenoid is Broken and allowing a vac leak. Maybe a vac line got tugged loose? On my 94 heat was only coming out of the rear seat vent. Upon Very Deep disassembly, I found that the left defog flap had broken off and fell down into the main box causing almost complete uncontrollability. I remounted it using a certain amount of Determination(tm) and all is working well.. Hope you can use something out of this ramble... Good luck

 

Hi Jerry, thanks for the reply. Both be blowers definitely work, I pulled them out and repaired them last month! A vacuum leak could be it, I made sure to plug up the lines to the solenoid i the centre vent but if they've come off lower I wouldn't be surprised. I also would be surprised to find chunks of flap in there like your model, haha.

 

Hi jryall,

Jerry's suggestion about a broken demist/defog flap could be valid. On our '93, the plastic hinge pins on both demist flaps broke, allowing the flaps to drop down under the force of the vacuum solenoids that are supposed to rotate them open and closed. So they were never sealing, allowing a lot of air flow to escape to the windshield/screen instead of coming out of the dash.

Another known issue on the 3.6 cars is that a seam separates in the plastic along the back side of the dash assembly, allowing air to escape toward the firewall.

Off the top of my head, I don't think a blend flap issue should make a difference in airflow between the left and right side vents of the dash, but for more than you ever wanted to know about the center vent and blend flaps, see the photos at these links:

Dash / Fascia Center Vent Flap
Blend Flap Check & Adjustment Part 1 of 5
Blend Flap Check & Adjustment Part 2 of 5
Blend Flap Check & Adjustment Part 3 of 5
Blend Flap Check & Adjustment Part 4 of 5
Blend Flap Check & Adjustment Part 5 of 5

Cheers,

Don

 

Great stuff, thanks very much Don! I don't fancy pulling the dash just for some leaky air so maybe it'll go on the "to do" list for when I finally need to replace the heater core or condenser.
Thanks,
Joe

 

Also, does anyone know if it's possible to force thess earlier cars into recirculate mode for the aircon? I think it would help cool the car down rather than sucking in 36 degree humid tropical air.