Alternative Cheap 1995-1997 Lincoln Town Car Blend Door Actuator Replacement

[@harrywilliams4309]

This was very innovative. I have to fix mine. This was an awful design by Ford and the plastic gears inside the blend door actuator is another flaw. Could've used something more solid. Another design flaw was putting a plastic intake manifold on these cars. The infamous heater hose fixture in the rear of the manifold near the passenger side dash, and the front coolant passage on the intake manifold will crack and leak.. It would crack and leak over time due to hot coolant breaking down the plastic manifold. They redesigned it with metal fixtures for engine coolant passages years later.

[@grettagrids]

To the haters. Fyi. Classic cars had a knob and cable to control the vents.

[@steamboat75043]

And choke (or as the brits called it 'strangler') for the 6 cylinder engine in a 59 chevy 1 ton I did up, as well as a 47 jeep I rebuilt. I don't really say restored, because I improved them or did them up as I wanted. For example the jeep got zebra stripes After driving it around for a while I sold it on ebay and it went to germany. I figured they wanted to reverse engineer it to figure out how they lost the big one in in 1945... :P :P :P :P :P The problem was it had 9" drums. Barely adequate for its time. With the 59 1 ton I managed to find kevlar lined front brake shoes and they worked almost as good as disk brakes, other than, you had to regularly adjust them. No automatic adjusting brakes for that vehicle. But it also had grease zerks for everything so nothing wore out if you took care of it. That's one of the things I really dislike about modern 'sealed' stuff. So I use a grease needle and go into the boot and fill it up. Then the grease eventually heats up and the boot helps squoze the goo where it needs to go. When I replace that stuff I always try to find stuff with grease fittings. And exterior mirrors were controlled by cables. And the 59 1 ton had floor vents with their own pulls/cables independent of what little heating system it had. (no A/C)

[@grettagrids]

@@steamboat75043 do you have a face book? I enjoy chatting about mechanical things.

[@grettagrids]

Oh yea and a hand throttle.

[@steamboat75043]

@@grettagrids I forgot about that, but my 59 1 ton had one when I first got it as it was a tool truck for dallas power and light and had a compressor under the hood. If we went way back it could be manual spark advance.... 😛😛

[@twofargone]

was thinking the very same thing to do with mine glad it feasible. probably will hide it in the glove box though for apperance reasons.

[@steamboat75043]

if you do that will make the cable even shorter, and might even provide a better angel and make it work even better. As often as I change mine - and it seems just once when its cold and once when its hot, that might even make better sense. from there I control temp via fan speed.

[@twofargone]

Thanks exactly what i was thinking of doing.

[@steamboat75043]

hmmm, 3 negatives? Maybe they did not like the music. 10 months later this repair still works fine.

[@grettagrids]

the music is great :) and yes this is a good repair.

[@wilcoxtactical3716]

More negatives now than positives. Thumbs down for the audio (not music) and lack of human voice. Nobody wants to read. Show us something...like you actually doing the fix. Lame.

[@grettagrids]

LOVE the Music.. it's happy

[@JeriDro]

@@grettagrids nah it sucks

[@stephenbartram7377]

@@JeriDro only your opinion not everyone else's

[@jamesmcqueen2618]

I believe your problem was a blend door activator that controls the air flow direction like floor , vent , defrost etc. Why would you do all that when you were right at the problem behind the front aid bag called the mode door activator?

[@steamboat75043]

Thanks for the comment, but the flow direction actuator has no impact on temperature. The repair I have outlined controls the blend of heated and cooled air, and that was the problem to be repaired. The system directed air to vent, defrost, or floor as requested. I did come up with another alternative. You can put a ball valve in the return line from the heater core to the back of the engine if you are getting hot air and thus stop the flow of hot air so the a/c would work. Then when you wanted hot, you open the ball valve. At the time the blend door actuator part was not available. I did all that so the system would work providing hot or cold air as desired.

[@jamesmcqueen2618]

Sorry I guest I misunderstood your statement. @@steamboat75043

[@steamboat75043]

@@jamesmcqueen2618 its easy to get stuff confused with all these cars have on them. I also have another video about another common climate control problem which is the a/c compressor failing to engage - turns out to be a $1 relay and the ETAC is easy to remove and repair (compared to pulling the dash out for the blend door actuator). I eventually found the OEM part on ebay and put it in and now the car works like it did day one for climate control (after I fixed that relay too - and that was after two lousy repairs on that ETAC module - assuming they even did anything with them).

[@dorvezjohnson8387]

Where can I buy the clip and the throttle cable? I have a 97 TC and I hear clicking and the heat isn't working anymore :( please help its cold outside :(

[@antonmordasov6782]

the choke cable is available at most auto parts stores. Here is an example from the internet. shop.advanceautoparts.com/p/dorman-help-control-cables-with-1-in.-chrome-knob-12-ft.-length-55195/22140498-p?c3ch=PLA&c3nid=22140498-P&c3apidt=25006321066&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIpr2ktOyd1wIVUrnACh0nNQhYEAYYASABEgKE7fD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds and you can also get the little clip from a universal throttle cable connection kit from like summit or anywhere that has aftermarket auto parts. Maybe even off a junk vehicle from a junkyard.

[@tommyp8920]

thought of that same thing myself for my 98 TC..... not even sure whats wrong just dont want to remove the dash.... hvac gives code 24 and i visually see the actuator rotating 360 constantly, but i plugged in the new one and it does the same thing. could this mean that the blend door is actually broken since the actuator isnt finding resistance when its calibrating? i took it apart for the first time today; i should have taken pictures for reference because i cannot remember what it looks like.... anyways i'm hoping to somehow cut into the heater box to attach a stiff cord or something..... is the bottom of the blend door shaft solid?? If I drill into it, could i thread a bolt in to manually work the door?

[@steamboat75043]

I believe the resistance to be in the motor assembly itself. so perhaps it's the wiring instead or the computer that drives the mess. On my car the blend door shaft is a solid rod bent to fit the actuator, but I have the older model car and since the parts don't interchange (i.e. I can't get my part anymore) I came up with the choke cable fix. The travel is short, but the cable does work and I safety wired it to keep it on there. The shaft on mine is like a 1/8" rod so drilling it and putting a screw into it would be tricky business and I don't know how solid it would after. probably better to glue to it, use a fitting like I did, or pass the cable through a vent and put a screw directly into the blend door, if you knew what angle to use. Thinking a bit more about it, you would have to look at top or bottom of the blend door, or shop guide to see if it actually had a pot on it to give resistance to its position. Makes more sense that its in the actuator. That being the case, again I would have to think it was the wire, or the computer itself, with the problem maybe being in the cable socket on the computer board, or the computer bit that reads the resistance gone stupid. I don't know how many pins are on your device, but two or three would be motor control and 2 pins would read resistance, so taking a meter and moving the thing through the travel would tell you resistance on two pins. If you got expected readings then the problem is not in the new unit. On the one that's spinning about you could measure voltage on the motor pins which would be constant if its just spinning in one direction, then check the other pins for control voltage which would probably be 0-5 volts or similar. Dash out is a pain in the azz. If you can't find a vid on boobtube to do that procedure, or anything in the forums, and you don't have the shop guide, figure a day to do the job. Kind of a pity since the mechanicals on these cars are good - engine and drive line.

[@grettagrids]

wow I thought my dad had this original fix... we did this with his 88 ford F150.. same problem.

[@joemccarthy4532]

This would be for lazy people to do . I like every repair done on my Town car to be OEM correct I'm Joe's wife and I will repair my blend door correctly myself . I say DO IT RIGHT and stop N rigging the repairs

[@steamboat75043]

At the time the OEM parts were not available from my ford dealer and he couldn't find them anywhere. They weren't on ebay either. Then when they did find the parts weeks later it was going to be well over $300 just for the parts. As I noted in my ETAC repair video, I later found the OEMs and fixed it with those. It was hardly a lazy man repair because since you know what the job takes to do the repair, removing the dashboard and replacing the component which is about an inch from the windshield, as well as dropping the steering column, never mind engineering an alternative solution, it was a considerable amount of time invested in the repair and at least the cable won't wear out or have gears strip like the OEM ford parts. So if someone doesn't have 1200 for labor (quoted to me from dealer - maybe 6-700 for a shop) and 300 for parts then this is a good alternative. The lazy repair, which I have also talked about is if the thing is stuck on heat, then the simplest and easiest thing is to put a ball valve on one of the lines from the rear of the engine to the heater core and shut the ball valve off when you want the a/c to cool the car. You can then turn ball valve back on when you want heat. Again, an inexpensive repair for someone who might not have the money or in this case be able to remove the dashboard and do the difficult repair involved. But Joe's wife, post your own videos on repairs if you have better solutions than these ones and try to help out fellow town car owners rather than making a racist remark. I don't know what your displaced anger is about, but it certainly isn't about this video. Wear a go pro or do vids like Tavarish or Legitstreetcars and share your knowledge so other people who want to keep the car OEM can do so. Your comment does nothing to further the cause or help other viewers but perhaps it makes you feel better to offer up a comment without realizing that everyone who has one or cares about them can work on them or afford to pay someone. I sold the car a few months back to people who worked hard to come up with the money for it but really needed a full sized car for their family. Knowing that I discounted the car for these hard working fellow Americans. Finally I will point out the work I did to photograph the repairs and create the video in addition to doing the repairs which takes a bunch of time as well. So lazy? Hardly. Let us know how the repair goes and what tricks and tips you have when you do the repair and photograph it and help everyone out.

[@louidog56]

Sometimes, especially when you can’t afford a perfect repair, you have to be resourceful-they call this an “alternative” fix for a reason. PS: Replacing the N word with “N” doesn’t make you sound any less racist.

[@grettagrids]

​@@steamboat75043hey, as long as it works right? As fir looks, i think it looks pretty darn cool. Makes folks think you might have NOS..

[@steamboat75043]

@@grettagrids you can take it one step further. Label it! I don't smoke or let people smoke in my vehicles and I found on ebay a red cigarette lighter with white lettering that says 'FIRE MISSILES'. Now that's a statement. Sometimes when I am sitting in traffic I push the button. Gives me a laugh. Gives me perspective. I bought them for my brothers too.

[@grettagrids]

​@@steamboat75043awesome! Might be cool if. You label. Yours, keep folks guessing what its for.. someone is bound to pull it..I'd label it NOS. Or choke, then sit back and watch how folks react.. I bet. One 9f those cables would work. On my powerchair brake release. It's a short. Tab under. The seat and already has. A. Hole in it.