Blend door removal write up?

[02blkram47]

Does anyone have a write up with pictures of how to get to the blend door and open it up permanately? Coldest morning of the year today and we hit -13 deg. had the truck runnning for a total of about 40 minutes between 15 min warmup this morning and then driving to work, the truck came up to temp and I was only getting mild warm temp coming from my vents. I call up the dealer and he tells me just labor will run $710. needless to say I'm thinking I can just open the door myself and deal with that. Not sure where to look or what to grab. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks

 

[bigbadram1500]

Bumperoo for others to chime in. Anyone got one of these writeups?

 

[The Assassin]

Eeek I haven't seen any one how to remove it. I had found a nice video on YouTube when I replaced mine.

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[02blkram47]

I love youtube for that kind of stuff. I'll check it out. thanks


edit: so I checked out a couple videos on youtube and now I'm more confused than before. I was under the impression that some people instead of fixing this blend door they would reach up under the dash and just pull the door out leaving it open all the time. My confusion is this: when I see them take the dash panel off on the passenger side the only door over there is being called the Recirculater door and not the blend door which seems to be closer to the center of the dash and has a motor attached to it. If I were having an issue with not getting really hot air would this be a recirc door issue or a blend door issue? Also If I take this door off completely do I think lose the ability to have cold air in the summer?

 

[Ramunit]

http://www.heatertreater.net/dodge-ram-02-08

 

[mikehutch]

The recirc door and the blend door are different.

The recirc door is used to pull cabin air in and recirculate it. So in extreme hot/cold you pull in the already conditioned air from the cab and run it through the HVAC again. When this is not in recirc you pull air from the cowl, condition it and it leaves the cab through the exhausters.

The blend door blends hot and cold air for the correct outlet temperature. So if this is stuck somewhere you may not get full hot or full cold.

Both doors play a part in how hot/cold your HVAC gets.

Your HVAC unit runs the air through the evaporator and then through the heater core. This is done as a de-humidification process when in defrost. This is why you will have the AC compressor running when in defrost. Don't want to throw moist air from the outside onto your windshield as you could end up with fog on the inside.

Max heat would be achieved in a mode other than defrost, blend door full heat and recirc door in recirc. This is of course assuming your heater core is functioning and not plugged and the engine is reaching operating temperature.

 

[02blkram47]

Well after driving the truck home from work I put the dial on all upper vents, no defrost or foot vents and although it took a bit the truck did have decent heat. Perhaps this mornings issue was a combination of -20 degrees and me having the dial on defrost that made it take so longtime heat up. It seems to me I'm able to move the air from vent to vent so those doors are working and I do get heat so I'm assuming the heater core is working. When the blend door breaks is all at once or would it start to fail over time?

 

[mikehutch]

Moving the air from defrost to vent to floor is the mode door. So you could still have a blend door issue.

I have some photos of a 2006 unit which is made by Denso here at work. Ill see if I can post some when I get home tonight.

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[mikehutch]

Ok here's some pics:







This the the bottom half of the blend door system. The heater core is sandwiched between this and the top half below.


Top half of the blend door system.


Ok so this is a pretty complex blend door system. You would typically do the blend with half as many doors, well at least we would. The photos above show a dual zone system or one which the passenger and driver get to pick different settings...so the case is divided down the middle. Their are four blend doors for the dual zone. If you have a single zone then the doors are interlocked and only have the one rear actuator.

In this system it looks as if when you are in cold the doors close down and seal off the heater core. The air then goes above and below the heater core. When you call for heat the top door move up into the air stream and forces air down through the heater core. The bottom doors open at the same time(via the linkage) and allows the air to leave the bottom. If in partial heat some air will still bypass the heater core around the top and bottom. In full heat all the top air will flow down though the heater core and out the bottom.

From the heatertreater link above if you go to the detailed descriptions for the Ram it gaves a pretty good description of the doors and some basic troubleshooting...no need to retype.

 

[Hemitom]

What normally fails is the Blend door. mine is removed. it has been fro about 2 years. i went and bought the updated replacement part for it. the replacement has the whole top part of it. from what i can tell its just pulling the dash out on the passenger side and unscrewing the 4(i think) screws and removing the whole assembly. then putting the new one back.

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/dd97/mikesjunk/2008 Dodge Ram/Back.jpg

 

[Zachohs]

do you happen to have the link for the updated replacement system, hemitom? My blend door is messed up and the passenger side only blows warm air.