Ever since I bought my car, I've noticed that the air vents for the A/C and heater do not blow air very much at all, despite the fact that the motor sounds like a mini-tornado when I turn it on high. It's never really bothered me much, because my A/C needs to be fixed anyway, and it doesn't get so cold in my area where I need the heater very often.

However, the other day I was fiddling around with the controls and noticed that although there isn't much air that comes out of the vents, on the right side of the A/C controls near the bottom of the console (about where the feet of a passenger would be) there is a huge amount of air being blown out. I'm not too familiar with how the system works, but I'm guessing air shouldn't be coming out of an area where there are no vents... and especially not most of the air shooting out at my passengers feet instead of being distributed throughout the four vents of the car.

So I am just looking for suggestions as to what I might look for to correct this problem. I replaced my heater core a long time ago when I was first learning how to work on cars, and I fear I might have inadvertantly messed something up in the process. Any help/advice with this problem would be greatly appreciated.

 

I'd suggest popping the cover off and taking a peek. There is, IIRC, a fairly large "door" in that very vicinity.

JamesC

 

Alright, I found said door, but I don't know how it is supposed to work. The service manual says the door is supposed to change according to vacuum conditions, but this door on my car is pretty much just hanging loosely from it's position. There doesn't appear to be anything connected to it to make it move or change position. Here's a picture to make it a little easier to understand.

 

I don't have my manual directly at hand. I'd put the system through its paces and see what develops. If necessary, manipulate the door by hand. In one postion or another, it may/should direct the air to the appropriate vents.

JamesC

 

As far as I can tell, a piece of the area that holds the door in place has been broken off (the bottom part--after tinkering with it I found that the top part of the door has a small hole that it slides into) and it won't sit in place. I may have to scour the junkyards and see how exactly this thing operates. I figure I may have broken it myself in my haste to reinstall my heater core.

Thanks for the help.