Hey guys,

I've got the infamous ticking from the dashboard and have narrowed it down to the right side blend door motor (see this thread for a diagram if you want: http://www.svtperformance.com/forums...end-door-motor). Got the part from my local dealer, who had it in stock for about $40. Got the glovebox out and got two of the three screws holding it in out...but now I'm stuck.



It's the screw right in the middle of the picture and here's some more detail to hopefully help somebody tell me how to do this:

• These screws look like they have Phillips heads; they don't, it's just four little dots, not any kind of fastener head I've ever seen.
• a 1/4" drive socket on a 6" or 12" extension just can't reach this one due to the angle, but is what I used to remove the other two.
• There's not enough room to fit a universal joint in the space.
• There is plastic on the right and top side of the screw, making getting a open or closed-end wrench over it impossible, far as I can tell.
• You can very awkwardly, barely get to it from underneath but getting to it with my fingers and actually putting a tool on it to loosen it is a different thing.
• Removing the blower motor doesn't give you any more space for this job.
• That large housing blocking my access doesn't appear to be removable without ripping apart the entire dashboard.

So....what's anybody got? The best I could think of is a really, really low profile socket or a pass-through socket but I don't know that anything exists small enough to fit in what's got to be a less than 2" gap.I'm tempted to have it all taken apart and just show up at my dealer and see if a mechanic can come figure out this one screw for me.



Hoping one of you has some brilliance - thanks guys!

 

Hi Kyle,

You obviously have never worked on airplanes! There’s tons of room there!
Make yourself a ¼ inch drive wobbler extension; leave the square on the very tip of the extension and undercut the rest of the square. That way when you snap the socket on it, the socket can “Swivel” almost 45 degrees to the extension and it’s a much more compact set up than bulky flex drive sockets and extensions. If you need to go shorter yet, shorten up the socket as much as possible leaving only as much hex as it required to grab the screw head.

John

 

Great ideas - thank you John! Will give that a try tonight maybe or this weekend more likely.

 

Well, I tried John's idea and cut down a wobbler and a socket both to make them shorter, but I either didn't do it right or that won't work either. So, the car's at the dealer getting the repair made - had to admit defeat finally. And I'm having them replace the power seat track I was going to do myself too, as that job just seemed like too much for me too. *Shame*

 

Kyle, glad to see you're getting this resolved at last. No shame in letting the dealer do it, they are the pros after all.

Quick question, when you say "infamous ticking from the dashboard" what do you mean exactly? I'm curious as I'm trying to diagnose a dash/console clicking sound in my own car which I get while accelerating hard on a hot day.

 

<<<@!1!@>>>

It's a clicking sound whenever you start the car or adjust which vents the air is blowing from. The sound is the actuator slipping due to something breaking inside, I think. It's very noticeable though - here's the video I took of mine:
There are three different ones in our cars (4 if you have dual climate control). Here's a good guide to fixing: http://www.svtperformance.com/forums...end-door-motor

 

Hey Kyle, thanks for posting. Wow, that is noticeable! Glad you're getting it fixed, I'd be on my way to the dealer the second I heard that.

This is definitely not what I'm hearing in my car. But it was worth a shot. At least I can eliminate that from the list of potential suspects. Thank you again.

 

Just rip the sucker out, that's what I had to do. Couldn't get the ratchet or a wrench on it. The plastic of the blend motor is really soft. You don't really need that screw. There's a shaped hard plastic post that aligns the motor behind the screw. The top two screws are enough to hold it in.

Also, return that part if you can. Your dealer really stuck it to you with that price. Fordparts.com sells it for less than $10. You choose which dealer you can buy from. I ordered it from Autonation Ford White Bear Lake (formerly known as Tousley Ford).

 

Yeah, not really enthused about ripping a piece of the HVAC system apart just because I didn't have quite the right tool, so I paid my dealer to do it.

As far as the part, looks like Autonation White Bear Lake has it for about $22. Amazing that dealers vary that much in price - too late to worry that much about it now but will keep that in mind for next time, depending on what shipping would cost me compared to just picking it up.

 

What is sad is that Ford has had this problem for over 20 years in one way or another. I have replaced two of them on my Mark VIII's.

 

Not sure I'd call it an ongoing problem. It's an electrical component manufactured by the tens of thousands by a supplier, and in mass production there are sometimes faults.

An ongoing problem with our cars would be the aluminum hood paint bubbling!

 

I had a 94 Mark VIII that the internal gears stripped and sounded like the one in the video. My 97 I replaced after I bought it, it snapped off the pivot going into the blend door arm. And on the Mark VIII you have to move the dash back to access the part. This particular problem seems to be isolated to Ford and is well documented across multiple models and years. A simple Google search will show this quite well:

https://www.google.com/#q=ford+blend...motor+problems

 

I had the a/c problem and the hood paint issue on my 07 and 11 Gts. Both under warranty. May if it happens on the 14 I'll win some kinda prize.

 

My 2011 GT Mustang had the clicking failure for a long time. It would go CLUNK - CLUNK - CLUNK about four times every time I started the vehicle.

As far as I could tell the AC worked fine, except for the objectionable noise. There was obviously something wrong, maybe the dual zone control was not operating properly, but this was almost always a one-passenger vehicle.

This was just analyzed and repaired by me.

There are three blend door motors on my dual-zone HVAC system.

Parts Listing

The glove box was removed. With me under the dash, the vehicle was started, to make the sound. I felt the strongest vibration from the passenger side front blend motor, so that is the one I yanked.

Of course Ford made one of the screws almost impossible to remove. The other two came out no problemo using a 8mm socket w/ 6" extension. The difficult screw required a combination wrench an 1/6 rotation turns to get it out. (That screw replacement required a magnet tool to get it started. My bet is that the dealership NEVER replaces that screw.)

Once the blend door motor was out I opened the motor to verify the failure. One tooth was gone on the final gear. Of course, the highest torque / lowest speed / most gear stress failed on that plastic gear.

The dealership parts department confirmed they have LOTS of this failure. Also a service guy started my car one time for another problem and announced I had the blend door motor failure. The listings for this part on eBay have sold thousands of these parts.

The new blend door motor was disassembled and appears to be identical to me, with NO design improvement to prevent this failure.


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