2007 Chevrolet Silverado Classic, Changing The Blower Motor

I have been asked several times how to change the blower motor in later model Chevrolet and GMC Full sized trucks as there are no mounting screws. This includes 2003 through 2007 Classic series trucks. There is a locking tab that has to be pulled down past the stop and then the motor assembly can be rotated and pulled from the blower housing.

Pull the tab down.

Rotate the motor assembly and pull it down and out of the truck.

The locking tab is at 3:00 and the motor electrical connector is at 1:00 in the picture below.

If you need to order a new motor please click here.

2001 Dodge Pickup, Noisy Blower Motor

This 2001 Dodge 1500 Pickup was already in the shop for a temperature control problem and while working on it I notice that the blower motor was very noisy and had a bad vibration to it.

There are three screws that have to be removed to take the blower motor out for inspection. Two are clearly seen in the following picture and the third is behind the motor out of view.

I pulled the motor out and this is what I found. A lot of leaves.

I vacuumed the leaves out with a shop vac and reinstalled the motor. Much Better!!!

2001 Dodge Pickup, No Temperature Control

This 2001 Dodge 1500 Pickup came in with a complaint that the a/c would blow cold for about 30 seconds and then it would shift to full hot. I started with inspecting the temperature door actuator. It is located under the passenger side of the dash near the transmission hump in the floor board. I turned the key on and set the temperature at full cold while watching for the actuator shaft to turn. To my surprise it started turning and never stopped. I knew that was not right so I removed the actuator expecting to find that the door, inside the a/c heater box would be broken. Thankfully it was okay.

What I found instead was that the plastic adaptor was broken. Why did it break? Was it just normal fatigue or something more? Turns out it was something more the motor is supposed to have electronic stops built into it and that function was gone. I decided to also install a new actuator.

With the old actuator removed, I aligned the new adaptor on the door shaft and pushed it into place. I also reached on top of the box through the glove box opening (I removed the glove box assembly) and pushed down on the door shaft while pushing up on the adaptor. I also was rotating and wiggling the assembly until I felt the adaptor fully seat into place as shown below.

I slid the actuator into place and lined up the door shaft and then rotated the actuator housing until it lined up on the alignment peg. With every thing lined up I installed the front (easy) mounting screw.

Then I had to be creative and I used a combination of several tools and finger tip coordination to install the difficult rear screw. I put the phillips bit in a ratcheting wrench, slid it into position, held the bit in place with a small screw driver and rotated the ratchet until the screw was tight. It took several times of trying until I got everything aligned just right for this to work but it beats several hours to remove the box assembly or doing and incomplete repair. I used the same procedure when I removed this screw during disassembly.

These are the tools I used to install the rear screw.

2003 GMC Envoy, No A/C Vent Control, B0263

This 2003 GMC Envoy came in with the complaint that the a/c will only blow out the defrost and floor. Not through the dash vents. I checked codes and found a code B0263 for a fault with the mode actuator. I first ran into this problem after changing a battery in one of these vehicles last year. Whenever the battery is disconnected the HVAC unit will perform a recalibration of all doors. This causes the door motors to be moved full cycle and the mode door will stick some times. I now hook a jump box to the system before changing the battery in Trailblazers or Envoys to prevent a recalibration from occurring. This way I will not be blamed for a stuck actuator motor.

Anyways to change the actuator motor, first drop the hush panel under the driver’s side of the dash. There are some parts that have to be disconnected from the panel including the turn signal flasher assembly shown in the next picture.

Next, I removed the lower dash knee panel to have a little more room to work.

I had to pull a push pin retainer out at the left side of the duct work in order to remove the driver’s floor vent.

Now, I could finally see the actuator on the side of the heater a/c box.

I removed the actuator and installed the new one. Performed a recalibration with my Tech 2 and put all the panels back in place. A recalibration can be done by disconnecting the battery for at least one minute, reconnect the battery, start the engine and leave the a/c controls alone. I would recommend letting the engine run for at least two minutes, turn the ignition off for at least ten seconds but no more than thirty seconds and then restart the engine so that confirmation of the repair can be done.

I do not recommend connecting the wiring to the actuator until it is installed. They come prepositioned for easier installation.

The notch at the lower edge of the gear is an alignment point. There is a corresponding tab on the door linkage that needs to be lined up with this notch.

To purchase the mode valve actuator, please click here.  To see updated information about actuator positions and alignment, please click here.

2003 E350 Super Duty Van, Turn Signals and Blower Inoperative

This 2003 E350 Van came in with the complaint that sometimes the turn signals and blower motor do not work. The customer also stated that the brake and abs lights would come on along with a buzzer. I questioned the driver and found out it happens mainly in the mornings and more so when it is cold outside. I actually fixed this last winter but I forgot to post it. In a nut shell it is a sticking/worn ignition switch. I have seen it a thousand times if I have seen it once. It took several times of turning the key and very slowly and lightly releasing it to get the switch to stick. I did this of course with the turn signals switched on and the blower on high so that I could see and hear the evidence. When I got it to hang up and the turn signals and the blower were no longer working even though the engine was running I was 100 percent sure the ignition switch was the problem.

I removed the tilt adjustment handle by unscrewing it and then I removed the screws holding the steering column covers together.

With the cover removed I simply unbolted the ignition switch from the column.

I unplugged the connector and  installed the new switch.

Since the cover was already removed I wanted to show how to change the lock cylinder if needed. Sometimes in older Ford vehicles I have had to replace both the lock cylinder and the ignition switch to fix this complaint. Turn the key on and depress the pin as shown in the next picture.

If only the lock cylinder has to be changed there is an access hole in the bottom of the lower steering column cover as shown below and the cover does not have to be removed.

Just a picture of the housing with the lock cylinder removed.

The next two pictures are of something I have never seen before on a vehicle and I consider it an extreme danger to the driver in the event of an front end accident. I noticed this black rubber cap sticking on a bar at the underside of the steering column.

I was curious so I pulled the cap off to see what was under it. A hollow tube with a very sharp angled cut on the end. Basically a skewer for an unsuspecting driver. I know some engineer had a reason for putting this in place, maybe it is designed to tilt up into the column and reduce frontal compartment collapse, But it looks like it will do more harm than good to me. If any one has an answer please let me know.

2000 Nissan Xterra, A/C Cools Sometimes

This 2000 Nissan Xterra came in with the complaint that the a/c works good sometimes but it may not work at all at other times. The easiest place to test is at the thermistor lead connector (white) at the bottom left of the glove box.

It can be done without removing the glove box but it is easier with the glove box assembly out of the way. There are two screws located in the lower corners. Two screws located in the upper corners and two screws located in the upper center at the latch bracket.

The testing is as follows. Key on and engine running with the a/c turned on: Green/orange wire will have battery voltage from fuse #29 in the underhood fuse box, the Blue wire will have battery ground from the a/c control assembly and the Blue/black wire will have a nominal 4-5 volts with the thermistor off (temperature below 40 degrees F) and less than .5 volts with the thermistor on (temperature above 45 degrees F). The thermistor assembly applies a ground to the circuit which is sent through the dual pressure switch and then on to the engine control computer. This one failed the test and needed to be replaced. The proper way is to remove the refrigerant and then the evaporator case but I prefer a simpler way. It can be a little painful but it only takes about ten minutes from this point to change it. There are three phillips headed screws that have to be removed along with three 10 mm headed screws as shown in the following pictures.

Once the screws are removed, the two halves of the evaporator case can be separated enough to look in, see the thermistor, carefully and a little painfully insert your hand into the box and removed the sensor. Slide the new one in, in the reverse order and install the previously removed screws. The long tab pointing down slides into the evaporator fins and tab pointing to the right is the actual thermistor bulb.

2001 Nissan Xterra, A/C Not Cooling

This 2001 Nissan Xterra came in with a complaint that the a/c does not cool very well. The customer said that it might cool for a little while but then it will stop. I checked the vehicle and the compressor was coming on and the air was cool but not cold. These vehicles are prone to having the thermistor assemblies fail so I wanted to get to the connector for testing. You can see it without removing the glove box but I find it easier and if it is faulty the glove box has to be removed.

There are two screws along the lower edge of the glove box assembly. There are four that have to be removed once the glove box door is opened. One in each corner and two at the latch bracket.

I saw that this vehicle has a cabin air filter so I decided to take a quick look at it. Wow, this thing is plugged up. I decided I had better clean this up be fore doing any more testing. I used and combination of a shop vac, an air hose and a long phillips headed screw driver to dig all of this out.

The only reason this thing was blowing any air is that Nissan designed some bypass ports into the filters.

There sure is a big difference between the old and new filters. Replacing the filters actually fixed the customers problem. What was happening is that the system would come on normally but because the thermistor air flow was being blocked by the dirty cabin air filters, it would turn the compressor off for a long time and the cooling process would stop.

The new cabin air filters installed. Sorry, I missed getting, the retaining clip at the bottom of the lower filter assembly, in the picture.

For more information on testing the thermistor or to see how a unit without a cabin air filter looks please click here.

2003 Toyota Highlander, A/C Stuck On Heat, Part 2

Well this 2003 Toyota Highlander with the a/c stuck on heat finally made it back in so that I could find out what is wrong inside the a/c control assembly. I am planning on fixing, hopefully some weak solder connections. The temperature control switch had been loose and I tightened that up and the system went back to work for about a day before it failed again. I have found that even though the switch is now tight in the assembly, if I rock the knob up or down slightly rather than rotate it the blend air door will shift back to cool. The simple diagnosis is, if there is no control over the temperature control, remove the knob (pulls off) and check to see if the retaining nut is loose. Tightening the nut should restore operation temporarily and confirm that there is a broken wire inside the assembly.

To remove the assembly I first started at the lower edge of the trim panel and started pulling it out from the dash and worked my way around to the top side of the panel.

With the trim panel removed there are six, 10 mm headed blots that have to be removed. Be careful not to drop any. I dropped one and it took me about half an hour to find it.

Next I tilted the assembly away from the dash and removed two screws from both sides. I then had to pry the bracket away from the control assembly in order to clear the alignment pins.

Of course I had to unplug the wiring but it was too tight to get a picture of this but you can see the three connectors that I had to remove. I did not disturb the radio wiring because of the possibility of loosing stored memory and anti theft issues.

With the control panel removed, I lifted the clear panel away so that I could unplug the ribbon wire cable.

There is a plastic retainer that looks like part of the socket. It needs to be gently lifted to release the locking mechanism. I used a pick with a 90 degree bend to lift each end about an 1/8″. If this clip is not properly released,  it will either break or shoot out and possibly be lost. Either way the job is over and you will have to buy another control head assembly, so be very careful.

Then the cable pulls straight out.

I then removed the screws that held on the rear cover.

Once the cover was removed I continued removing the screws that held the circuit boards in place and removed the nuts that held the switches in place.

With the circuit boards and switches removed from the assembly I could now see the real problem. Two of the three wires that connect to the switch circuit board were broken.

I clipped the last wire as close as I could to the circuit board. Once removed, I heated the broken ends of left over wire in the switch and pulled the pieces out with very small pliers. I then ran a piece of very small steel wire through the holes to clear the remaining solder. I used a razor blade to remove some insulation from the wire lead, fed the wires through the holes and soldered in place.

In hind sight I think on the next one that I will assemble the board and switches back into the control assembly and then solder the wires.

There was a little tension on the wire lead, that I did not care for, as I assembled the unit back together, so I heated up the leads a little and let the wires slide back far enough to take the tension off of the wires and the circuit boards.

I installed the control assembly back into the dash.

Then finished by testing and installing the trim panel.

The soldering and repair work internal to the control assembly was quite tedious and if you are not used to doing this kind of work, I would recommend taking it to some one that is. At least you will know what is wrong and you will not need to buy a control assembly that costs right at $700. For more information on the system please click here for part one.

I have added a few pictures and more detailed description in the above article. I am also updating the technique used to repair the solder joints.

There is not much excess ribbon cable and hardly any of us have that just laying around, so I use a razor blade to remove some of the insulation.

Exposing about 3/16″ of wire. I preclean the solder and old wire from the switches circuit board. Install the switch in the control assembly. I then guide the wires through the cleared holes on the exposed side of the switch circuit board. I gently mount the main circuit board back into the control assembly, pull the ribbon cable back slightly and solder the wires into place.

I find this much easier than trying to work the ribbon cable through from the original direction.

2004 Pontiac Grand Prix, Changing The Cabin Air Filter

This 2004 Pontiac Grand Prix had come in with the complain of no blower operation and this is a supplement to that repair

The cabin air filter is located under the hood on the passenger side of the car. It is a little bit easier to do if you do this first. With the hood closed, turn the ignition on, turn the wipers on and turn the key off when the wiper blades are straight up. Then lift the hood and begin working. I forgot and it doesn’t make that much difference for me.

I removed the hood to cowl rubber seal. It just lifts off of the metal lip.

I pulled a couple of push pins from the cover and unhooked the plastic line from its hold down.

I lifted the cover and found the water deflector missing from its position and this cabin air filter.

I used a shop vacuum to remove the loose leaves and debris.

Can you guess which one is the new one?

I slid the new filter into place and installed the water deflector to its proper position.

I installed the cowl cover and this one was done.

2004 Pontiac Grand Prix, No Blower

This 2004 Pontiac Grand Prix came in with a complaint that the blower had stopped working and the customer saw smoke from under the passenger side of the dash. Inspection at the under hood fuse box found a blown 30 amp fuse.

I replaced the fuse.

The new fuse is the square pink fuse second from the left.

I checked and found the blower would work but made a terrible noise and would not turn off.

Time to change the blower motor and blower motor speed controller. I started by removing the passenger side lower hush panel by removing several push pin retainers.

I removed the courtesy light from the panel.

< Then I could access the motor assembly for removal. Three screws and a harness connector and it was out of there. The blower motor speed controller was put on at the factory by melting retaining bosses to hold the assembly together.

I had to use a screwdriver and pry the unit from the housing and installed the new one with screws to hold it in place.

I also checked and replaced the dirty cabin air filter which is probably what helped cause this problem. Click here to see that post.