Air Conditioning Recirc Door Issue. (NO BLEND DOORS)
06-08-2008, 07:33 PM
#31
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[QUOTE=FMB;2109638]I hate to break it to you, but the "new and improved" part was the housing, which you tossed in the trash.
QUOTE]
Yeah, I had read here that the improved part was the housing. However, when I got the part, I took a close look at it and it didn't look like it was such a great design. My memory isn't the greatest, but if I recall right, there's a tab on the white coupler that will rest on a tab on the housing, and that will prevent too much force/torque from being imparted onto the door. The position of the tabs, however, looked to me like there'd still be too much stress on the door, possibly leading to it breaking again. Considering how easy it was to replace just the door, I didn't think it was worth trying to remove the entire housing. Yes, I'm lazy.
Anyway, knock on wood, it's still working.
When the recirc door first started going out, I would get a kind of a reduced amount of airflow and the a/c didn't seem to get real cold. I believe this was caused, as you said, a combination of fresh and recirc air. Eventually, the door broke completely off and settled on the blower inlet...that meant virtually no airflow from the vents. I removed the broken door and then there was decent airflow and the air got pretty cold. I left it like that for a while before replacing the door since I thought it was livable as is. After I finally replaced the door, I realized that by closing off the fresh air inlet to the cab, the a/c worked awesome! It gets real cold, real fast and it's so much better now.
QUOTE]Yeah, I had read here that the improved part was the housing. However, when I got the part, I took a close look at it and it didn't look like it was such a great design. My memory isn't the greatest, but if I recall right, there's a tab on the white coupler that will rest on a tab on the housing, and that will prevent too much force/torque from being imparted onto the door. The position of the tabs, however, looked to me like there'd still be too much stress on the door, possibly leading to it breaking again. Considering how easy it was to replace just the door, I didn't think it was worth trying to remove the entire housing. Yes, I'm lazy.
Anyway, knock on wood, it's still working.When the recirc door first started going out, I would get a kind of a reduced amount of airflow and the a/c didn't seem to get real cold. I believe this was caused, as you said, a combination of fresh and recirc air. Eventually, the door broke completely off and settled on the blower inlet...that meant virtually no airflow from the vents. I removed the broken door and then there was decent airflow and the air got pretty cold. I left it like that for a while before replacing the door since I thought it was livable as is. After I finally replaced the door, I realized that by closing off the fresh air inlet to the cab, the a/c worked awesome! It gets real cold, real fast and it's so much better now.
06-08-2008, 07:44 PM
#32
MMMmmmm.... Grits!!
When I did the proper housing change to mine with pics for DTR, the housing was the updated piece. Being from parts, I know that Chrysler has since changed their minds to just replacing the door instead of the housing. Major cut on labor time sure benefits them when it comes to warranty. The only problem being that I don't see how just the door "solves" this problem. Too much torque from the actuator making the door overtravel was the cause of the breaking doors. The new housing added two new travel limiting studs to prevent it from happening again. Mold or condensation causing sticking will return. A faulty actuator is bound to screw up again as well. At least with the new assembly you got all three new pieces for the price of just the same old door.
Chris
Chris
06-08-2008, 09:35 PM
#33
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I am having the same trouble with my truck - the blower blows but only a little air comes out of any of the vents. This doesn't happen all the time though. It comes and goes. Can this be the recirc door if it comes and goes? Sometimes the air works fine, but other times it gets all stopped up. I opened up the dash (took out the glove box and vent covers and part of dash on the passenger side). It seems that unplugging the wires to the control panel of the a/c sometimes corrects the problem for a little while. But, that doesn't always work... Does it sound like the same recirc problem? I like the idea of just taking out the recirc door...
Another problem that happens sometimes, although not right now, is that the air will come out say only the dash vents, but no where else, even if you turn the controls to defrost or feet. Could this be related? All the problems deal with air flow. Sometimes the whole thing is blocked, sometimes it works fine, sometimes the air will only come out a certain vent place and no where else... Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Ky
06-08-2008, 11:45 PM
#34
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Thread Starter
What he said...
No! The only purpose of a properly operating Recirc door is to allow your blower to obtain its air either 100% from the cab (recirculating the cab air) or 100% from the outside (Fresh air).
When the door breaks, it does one of two things; either it won't move back and forth to the stops (giving you a mixture of recirculation and fresh) or the most likely scenario, dropping the door off the motor and settling on the fan intake screen. What that does, is stop the blower from recieving air. Without air on the intake side of the blower, you can't get any air on the discharge side of the blower (no air at vents, plenty of blower noise). The stoppage is not 100%, but it is so much, it may as well be 100%.
When the door breaks, it does one of two things; either it won't move back and forth to the stops (giving you a mixture of recirculation and fresh) or the most likely scenario, dropping the door off the motor and settling on the fan intake screen. What that does, is stop the blower from recieving air. Without air on the intake side of the blower, you can't get any air on the discharge side of the blower (no air at vents, plenty of blower noise). The stoppage is not 100%, but it is so much, it may as well be 100%.
I was wishing that I had taken pics because I couldn't figure out how to "paint a good picture" of what is going on with these things. Anyway, that is EXACTLY what happens folks.
As for mine, they changed the housing, door and motor. A good thing right?
And I'm leaving that thing set at Recirc for now on when I can.
06-09-2008, 11:49 AM
#35
DTR Detective
When I did the proper housing change to mine with pics for DTR, the housing was the updated piece. Being from parts, I know that Chrysler has since changed their minds to just replacing the door instead of the housing. Major cut on labor time sure benefits them when it comes to warranty. The only problem being that I don't see how just the door "solves" this problem. Too much torque from the actuator making the door overtravel was the cause of the breaking doors. The new housing added two new travel limiting studs to prevent it from happening again. Mold or condensation causing sticking will return. A faulty actuator is bound to screw up again as well. At least with the new assembly you got all three new pieces for the price of just the same old door.
Chris
Chris
2
06-09-2008, 12:25 PM
#36
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06-09-2008, 09:24 PM
#37
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I removed the recirc door awhile back (after it broke and fell). Run without it... Recently, on the way back from long vacation trip, it started doing the same thing... blowing like h*ll but nothing coming out... finally after turning the AC off for a bit all was good again for the next 100 miles or so and it would "rinse and repeat".. figured I was low on freon, but now see it is a sensor.. sound like an expensive sensor.. so the "temp fix" of turning it off to thaw out will have to do as I will be trading this one off in a year and I am way out of that warranty...
06-09-2008, 09:56 PM
#38
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I removed the recirc door awhile back (after it broke and fell). Run without it... Recently, on the way back from long vacation trip, it started doing the same thing... blowing like h*ll but nothing coming out... finally after turning the AC off for a bit all was good again for the next 100 miles or so and it would "rinse and repeat".. figured I was low on freon, but now see it is a sensor.. sound like an expensive sensor.. so the "temp fix" of turning it off to thaw out will have to do as I will be trading this one off in a year and I am way out of that warranty...
Anybody here get iceballs with a working recirc door on "Fresh"?
06-10-2008, 10:48 AM
#39
MMMmmmm.... Grits!!
I only had to move the sensor on my '03 with a similar problem. Not replace. IIRC the factory was putting them closer to the side, and it needed to be in the center. It seemed like it gave the compressor shorter cycles, but it didn't freeze up any more.
Chris
Chris
06-10-2008, 01:43 PM
#40
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Well I guess we have hi-jacked the thread... but how easy/hard is it to reach the sensor to move it??? Would much rather try that than having to turn the AC off to thaw out or worse yet pay the tariff on getting it "fixed".
06-10-2008, 02:43 PM
#41
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The right way to change the sensor is to remove the housing from the truck and strip it.If it is your own truck you could save a bunch of time and make a door in the housing
BOT
06-11-2008, 11:58 AM
#44
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For me not only seem like it freezes up on long trips. But it also blows harder on the drivers side, and during the winter time it has a leak of cold air that comes in on the passenger side. Right by the floor vent. Why do I get the feeling this is going to be costly on my 03 ram 3500.
06-11-2008, 01:42 PM
#45
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Yeah, expensive it does sound... so I think I will just keep turning it off and thawing until I trade next year... only have one long trip planned again this year so hopefully there will be no other ill-effects from not fixing this problem..