For anyone who has had the pleasure of having to replace any of your heating/cooling system blend doors you might know what i'm writing about. For those who will have to do it in the future, i have a quick note of advice. I read a post on another Dodge website from a gent who dissasembled the entire dash assembly piece by piece to get to the heater air box assembly.
Well, having never done this on a dodge Ram before I followed his write up and took the entire dash apart piece by piece. It was only until i started the re-assembly I realized that it would have been much easier to remove the entire dash assembly as one piece. The dash, dash support structure, airbag, the heater ducting, the front plastic trims and all other pieces can stay on the dash. The only thing that had to be done is the steering column has to be lowered (4-13mm nuts), the wiring harness has to be disconnected (4 plugs) and 8-13mm bolts have to be taken out thay connect the dash support structure to the body of the truck.

Doing this would have saved me propably three hours of work and a bunch of plastic clips I had to cut to separate the dash.

I didn't take any pictures because i was pressed for time, but trust me, take the dash out in one piece, it's actually pretty easy. You will need a buddy to help you pull the dash out through one of the front door openings.

I guess you live and learn.

JR

 

I have this problem and also need to remove dash. Can you give explain a little more in detail about "8-13mm bolts have to be taken out thay connect the dash support structure to the body of the truck"

Thanks

 

Once I removed the dash in pieces I figured out that had I removed it in one piece, it would have been much easier and would have broken a lot less tabs, propably because that's the way it was installed.
From memory these are the steps which will you will need to remove the dash of a 03+ Ram p/u.

Remove the following in more or less this order.
1. Plastic A-Pillar handle trims, left and right.
2. Top dash panel, this just snaps in place.
3. Left and right dash side panels.
4. Plastic panel and thin metal cross brace under the steering column.
5. Plastic trim below the cup holder.
6. Support strap for the airbox to the dash frame, 1-10mm bolt directly under the glove box.
7. Take out 3-13mm bolts on either side of the dash, 6 total. These are the biggest bolts you will take out.
8. Take out 4-10mm bolts connecting the far front of the dash top to the body of the truck, directly at the bottom of the windshield.You must remove the dash top in step #2 to see these.
9. Two 10mm bolts at the bottom of the dash frame work, behind the plastic panel under the cup holder removed in step #5.
10. Top and bottom steering wheel column covers. When you have these off disconnect all the plugs(there should be 4 I think, one main big one for the ingnition, two smaller ones for the air bag and cruise controls. Fouth is a smaller one, i'm not what it's for)
11. Disconnect the brake light swith from the dash harness.(DO NOT REMOVE THE BRAKE LIGHT SWITCH FROM THE STEERING COLUMN ASSEMBLY. IF YOU REMOVE IT, IT CANNOT BE RE-INSTALLED AND YOU WILL BE SPENDING $24 TO BUY A NEW ONE FROM DODGE. I'M ON MY THIRD ONE ALREADY.)
12. Undbolt 4-13mm nuts and lower the steering column onto the floor, just leave it laying there.
13. Two 10mm bolts holding the dash structure to the steering column mounting base. You can only see these once you've lowered the column.
14. Passenger's and driver's kick panels, these just snap in place.
15. Disconnect the main wiring harness at the driver's kick panel, as well as three or four other smaller harness connectors.
16. Disconect a smaller harness behind the passenger kick panel, as well the antenna cable has a joint here.
17. Remove the headlight switch and disconnect that plug.

That's it, now call a buddy of yours and get him to help you lift the dash out. First pull it slightly towards yourself as the main support structure that bolts to the side of the body of the cab has two tabs that slide into positioning slots. Then just lift it out through one of the door openings. I also unbolted the front seats and pushed them back, this gave an additional 10" of working room. Be careful not to rip any of the upholtery or the seats as most of the metal structure is stamped steel.
I would say the whole assembly weighs upwards of 100lbs, so have your wheaties that morning.

Since I only wanted to do this once, I purchased all the mix doors. For a truck with dual climate control, there is seven of them.
1. 1 - Recirc/Fresh air door - Located directly behind the glove box.
2. 1 - Floor/Dash Vent door - Located at the most bottom of the air box.
3. 1 - Windshield vent door - Located at top of air box.(This is the only door that can be replaced with the airbox in the truck).
4. 4 - Dual Climate temperature Doors.

To pull the airbox out of the truck you have to unbolt 3-10mm bolts inside the engine bay, they are located on the fire wall around the area where the heater hoses go through it, they are pretty easy to spot.
Unbolt 2-10mm bolts insitde the truck, one top and one bottom of the newly exposed air box unit.
Disconnect the heater hoses and the A/C lines. Pe prepared to pay a recharging fee at a later date when you disconnect the A/C lines. To do the lines you will need an AC line disconnect tool, for 1/2" and 3/8 lines. I picked mine up at a local NAPA store, $8 for a whole kit which had 5 sizes in it.
Let the coolant out of the A/C system first through the line valve, otherwise you'll get a nasty surprise when you disconnect the lines.

Also let out some of the engine coolant through the radiator drain plug on the lower driver's corner of the rad. This will ensure you don't get radiator cooland everywhere.
At this point the air box just pulls out and you can work on it on a bench.

The re-installation is just the reverse of these steps.

Looking back I wish I had known to pull the dash in one piece, I would have saved muself a whole lot of aggrivation and choice words.

If anyone has any specific questions, PM me.

JR

 

WOW, Thanks for the write up. It sounds as though I have my weekend project lined up.

 

I just looked at my climate control, and it is not dual sided. Also, it appears that when I switch to defrost or to the floor or to the middle vents on the air flow dial, it moves the air correctly, but the volume it is pushing out is very light. You can hear the fan increase in speed when it is turned up, but the air flow does not. ? I am a little confused now.

 

I'm not sure what the issue might be with your truck.
My symptoms were that about four months ago i started my truck one morning and the heater control was set on windshield defrost and air would only blow out of the dash vents. I moved the control **** a couple of positions, then back to the windshield, and eventually it corrected itself.

Then about three weeks ago, the whole thing went south, and air would only blow out the dash vents, and it was weak.

So that's why I purchased all the doors, and changed them all.

Out of the seven, three were broken.

Loking back now, these doors can actually be fixed, and very effectively.

There is a white tubular plastic insert between the door and the actuator motor. There is a keyway inside of the door that strips as the door is plastic that is softer than the plastic insert.
Since this insert does not have to be aligned or indexed with the motor in any way,(the actuators index themeselves once you turn the ignition for the first time for the travel distance required), what you can do is glue the insert into the door and add a couple very small screws through the door and the insert to make sure the glue doesen't let go.

I actually did this to one of the doors just to try it and it worked great. Once I super glued the insert in the door, I heated a thin wire and melted two very small holes through the door shaft and the insert inside. Then used two very small screws I bought at Home Depot to screw through the shaft of the door and the insert inside. That is never coming apart.

Looking back again, I should have never spent the $365 on all these new doors, and just fixed them this way. This is actually a very simple fix, and if you have a small amount of technical and hand tool knowledge, you will be just fine. Unfortunately hind sight is always 20/20.

This is a long shot, but if anyone in the Winnipeg, Manitoba area needs help with this fix, I would be more than happy to help.

JR