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Driver side vents not cold

29K views 13 replies 2 participants last post by  MalcolmY 
#1 ·
Last year there was a long thread I posted in which I complained that I need to cycle the AC on/off a number of times until the compressor starts, well, compressing. Let's ignore the compressor for now.


I still have to cycle on/off just to get the driver side ac vent to blow cold. During these on/off cycles, the passenger side vents are cold and okay.


On top of that, I have a clicking noise somewhere under the steering wheel area when I change the temperature from cold to hot, the clicking noise is still present from hot to cold but is less noisy than cold to hot.


So to sum up:

1. Driver side vents do not blow cold air until I cycle the AC on/off 10-15 times.

2. Clicking noise under steering wheel when changing AC temperature or when starting AC sometimes.


Based on that, I blame the driver side blend door. Can I get to it without tearing the whole dash apart?

What do you guys think, thank you.
 
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#2 ·
Just posted THIS for someone else. Should give you a good idea of where it is located...and how easy it is to access.
 
#3 ·
Thank you doug. I found my answer in VTL.pdf. The location of that actuator was displayed in your link HAC.pdf

It seems easy-ish to access.

My last question, what is the part number for the LH Air-mix door actuator?

The following page (partsouq.com) displays all the actuators as "air mix" it's not absolutely clear which one it is for me, but I'm guessing it's 27733N (part# 27732AL610).

https://partsouq.com/en/catalog/gen...9xX1U8YgAAAABl5e8F$&vid=0&cid=5&uid=221371&q=
 

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#4 ·
27732AL610 looks right and I'm sure it's the same part for either side (it's Nissan not Mercedes...)

Let us know how you get on!
 
#6 · (Edited)
UPDATE:

I took the actuator out, it would have been easy if removing the "heater and cooling unit foot duct LH" was easy. It wasn't because I spent a good amount of time searching for the screws and even way more time removing them. The "heater and cooling unit foot duct LH" is the assembly that contains the tube inlet, you have to remove it.

Now, "removing" it it kind of a stretch it was dangling and annoying me the whole time, because the actuator wire attached to it from the back and I didn't want to spend more time with removing that. I could, however, push it aside somewhat to remove the actuator screws. If you can remove that piece completely from the car it would be a lot easier. I forgot if it had 2 or three screws. If it doesn't fall, there's a screw left.

I turned the AC on AFTER I removed the actuator and it was cold, if this keeps working I'm happy until next winter.

I will open the actuator and post pictures, maybe today or tomorrow.

The actuator I took out looks exactly like 27732AL610 mentioned above.
 

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#7 ·
Nice. I like your $0 wait and see approach too ;) Chances are those actuators have the same crappy plastic gears in them that the steering column locking module did too...they just don't last.
 
#8 · (Edited)
I turned the AC on today, there was a difference at first between driver and passenger air vents temperatures. But that was before the compressor started working properly (I know it's working good after cycling on/off when the passenger's vents are cold). So I'm not sure if the driver's vents plastic was "hotter" and needed a while to cool or something else was controlling the ait temp mixture? I don't know. I first used the car yesterday at 8:30 p.m., outside temperature was 31C. Anyway...




ACTUATOR UPDATE:

I opened the actuator and quickly noticed that the first gear in contact with the motor's worm gear, would move up and out of alignment with that worm gear and they disengage, when the motor was spinning counter-clockwise only. I was expecting some teeth or any gear damage, but nope, nothing. I took a video of the gear moving out:




I have three actuators from a salvage yard that I got when I first started hearing clicking noises a few years ago, I knew this day would come. So I started comparing, I switched gears even the worm gears, I switched motors and housings. In the end, I came to the conclusion that the shaft of that gear became too narrow. The same gear in other housing has a waaay tighter fit. So, the first solution that came in my mind was to push it down with a shim. So I put a washer over the gear and shaft so it would push down on the gear after the housing was assembled.






The motor was fixed using thick double side pads, I needed a screw driver to pry it out. So that must be significant? I the glued the motor with super glue, it should stay put.
I reassembled the actuator and took the following video:



It kept going without any issue, so hopefully this shim/washer fixes that problem. It may take me a while to reinstall the actuator back into the car, but I will update this thread when that happens.




Does any know how to power the actuator/motor through the pins (the pins the oem wires connect to) I couldn't power any of the actuators with any combination of pins and +ve/-ve wires (this was all done with a 9v battery). I had to supply power direclty to the motor, and use on of two pins. But I couldn't supply any two pins with power directly from the battery and have the thing work. If I can get an answer to this I would be grateful.
 

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#9 ·
You cannot do it directly via the 3pin connector, those 3 pins are power, control and ground. The control is a 1-wire serial communication from the climate control 'computer' which you'd have a really rough time reverse engineering. Keep going with the alligator clips :)
 
#10 ·
Can the Nissan actuators be calibrated?

This actuator does not move in the car, with and without the shim, and neither in it's arm's slot nor dangling by it's wire. And neither do any of my other junk yard actuators when connected to the same connector.

I can't find anything further than "installation is in the reverse order of removal" in the FSM.
 
#11 ·
Do those same actuators work on the other side door's connector, from the FSM, there are 4 that should be pretty much identical? If so, it could just be the auto climate control module (ie the source of the control signal) or a harness wiring problem.
 
#12 ·
The three I have are not interchangeable, I think. The guts of the LH and RH air mix actuators are identical, but the output shafts exit from the opposite side of the plastic case (one of them would exit from the "flat" side of the case, and the other one would exit from the not-flat side).

I yanked on the wire attached to the plastic cover I mentioned earlier, maybe something happened there. Or I burned the boards when I was trying to power them from the connectors? I'm waiting for a cheap used actuator, if that doesn't work too, I'll have to get to the AC control unit, i.e. removing the dash. ugh.
 
#13 ·
Ok, good to know about the mirror mechanicals, but the connectors and drive signals are the same. You can at least verify the climate controller signals this way using a known good actuator and moving it around to each harness connector.
 
#14 ·
I finally have a conclusion to this post.

The actuator I got from eBay works, driver air mix door is now working.

That means, the other four actuators I have were not working (including the car's original one). I bet I burned the control modules by trying to power them through the pins. Must have shorted them, I did touch two pins at the same time with one probe frequently.

I hope this helps future SOBs.
 
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