- Joined
- Sep 12, 2023
- Messages
- 5,838
- Location
- Roselle, IL
- Cars in Garage
- 1
- Vehicle Details
- 1994 Cougar XR7 DOHC TR3650
So you had a blend door failure, it’s blowing cold when it should be hot, or it’s blowing hot when it should be cold, either way I bet you’re upset and uncomfortable right now. I’ll double that bet that your now filled with dread that this is as bad as changing the heater core… well fear no more as I can show you how to do this in a half an hour without breaking a sweat.
First of all you’re going to want to disconnect the battery. And for reelz as you will be unplugging an airbag for this task.
Now let’s dig in, first you want to drop the glove box, not remove, just open it extra wide, and you can do this by first unhooking the shock on the right side of it (only of you have a 94-96)
and then pushing in the right side for the tab to clear the dash core
It goes somewhat without saying at this point that you should have removed the contents of your glovebox, because otherwise you might be realizing it all fell onto the floor, but moving on…
Now what you want to do is look inside above, you’ll see a plastic ducting system to the AC vents, you want to remove this, there is a Phillips screw in the middle holding the halves together and three 7mm screws holding the ducting to the dash frame, remove them all
Now that those are out drop the ducting down like this, which will allow you to separate the halves to fully remove them
With the ducting out of the way you now have access to the 4 8mm passenger airbag mounting bolts, highlighted in green. Remove all four
From here you can pull out the airbag and disconnect its connector(again I hope you disconnected the battery!)
Pretty easy so far eh? And guess what that was the hard part!
Now you might have noted a big gaping hole in the dash without the airbag, and if you peer in looking towards the middle you might be able to spot the target blend door actuator
From here you’re going to need a 8mm combination wrench, unless you have 80s Schwarzenegger arms you can reach in through the hole, unclip the connector and with your wrench to get at all three blend door screws. Pro-tip, it usually only takes a few turns with the wrench to get the screws loose, where you can remove them by finger for the remainder(same with reinstall)
Now that you’ve taken the screws out simply pull it back and remove the blend door actuator
With the actuator out of the dash, the blend door if not in the position already will have fallen into the “cold” position. The actuator in the cold position should be keyed like this
If not you’ll need to adjust it, using wires from a battery to either pins 7 and 8 to adjust the motor to the actuator( reverse the polarity if it’s going the wrong way)
And that’s it! Install the new one in its place and for assembly do the reverse of the disassembly.
First of all you’re going to want to disconnect the battery. And for reelz as you will be unplugging an airbag for this task.
Now let’s dig in, first you want to drop the glove box, not remove, just open it extra wide, and you can do this by first unhooking the shock on the right side of it (only of you have a 94-96)
and then pushing in the right side for the tab to clear the dash core
It goes somewhat without saying at this point that you should have removed the contents of your glovebox, because otherwise you might be realizing it all fell onto the floor, but moving on…
Now what you want to do is look inside above, you’ll see a plastic ducting system to the AC vents, you want to remove this, there is a Phillips screw in the middle holding the halves together and three 7mm screws holding the ducting to the dash frame, remove them all
Now that those are out drop the ducting down like this, which will allow you to separate the halves to fully remove them
With the ducting out of the way you now have access to the 4 8mm passenger airbag mounting bolts, highlighted in green. Remove all four
From here you can pull out the airbag and disconnect its connector(again I hope you disconnected the battery!)
Pretty easy so far eh? And guess what that was the hard part!
Now you might have noted a big gaping hole in the dash without the airbag, and if you peer in looking towards the middle you might be able to spot the target blend door actuator
From here you’re going to need a 8mm combination wrench, unless you have 80s Schwarzenegger arms you can reach in through the hole, unclip the connector and with your wrench to get at all three blend door screws. Pro-tip, it usually only takes a few turns with the wrench to get the screws loose, where you can remove them by finger for the remainder(same with reinstall)
Now that you’ve taken the screws out simply pull it back and remove the blend door actuator
With the actuator out of the dash, the blend door if not in the position already will have fallen into the “cold” position. The actuator in the cold position should be keyed like this
If not you’ll need to adjust it, using wires from a battery to either pins 7 and 8 to adjust the motor to the actuator( reverse the polarity if it’s going the wrong way)
And that’s it! Install the new one in its place and for assembly do the reverse of the disassembly.
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