I posted a message about this quite awhile ago. Back in summer my vents weren't working right. No matter what you have the setting on (floor, defrost, dash vents), it never really came out the vents you wanted it to. The air ALWAYS blew out the center dash vents no matter what, for example. This is on a 2004 (new style) F150 Lariat with auto climate controls.

So this fall when it started cooling off, all of a sudden it seems the air flows where it's supposed to now based on what setting you have the AC on. Although it still seems like there's not enough air coming out the defrost vents when I've got it on the defrost/floor combo setting. It will come out full force on the defrost if I select just the defrost setting alone though.

To me what makes sense is that the baffles/flaps inside the blower box got stuck due to the expansion of things in warmer temps. Once it got colder, things contracted, freeing up the flaps. Make sense? That's all I can come up with.

I dread taking it to the dealer because I fear an expensive fix - if they have to take the dash apart to get to the blower box. I'm hoping it'll work normally next year when it start getting warm again, but we'll see.

Anyone have this problem before? Just curious. If you did, cause of the problem was?....

 

If you don't have a center console you should be able to view the controller
operating the damper motors for various positions selected on the climate control. Try a search on climate control,you might want to run the climate control diagnostic.

 

I don't have the center console. I found at least one post about someone saying they srayed some teflon spray on the linkage and that fixed it. I'll get under there and see what I can find. I don't have any teflon spray but I do have some silicone spray handy.

 

I looked under the dash again but I'm not seeing any linkage at all. All I see are 2 electric motors on the driver's side - attached to the side of the blower box, one down low and one higher up. The lower one is circled in yellow in the photo below. The one above that is circled in blue.

I assume those are the motors that controls the blend doors. Right? If so, I don't see any way to lube the linkage...because there is no linkage exposed.

Thoughts? Am I looking at the right thing?

The tube and screw thing you're seeing on the left of the photo is part of the power pedal adjuster. This photo was taken with the camera down by the gas pedal looking up.

 

Anyone? See post above...

 

Still looking for an answer to the question above with the photo. Anyone?...

 

Surely someone can answer this?...See photo and question above. I don't see any linkage...

 

i had a problem with the a/c. when i layed on the drivers floor with my head by the gas pedal looking straight up i reached up and ran the temp full cold to full hot. i could see linkage moving and hear it "groaning", truck running of course. thats when i put a towel in there over the carpet and pedals to collect overspray and residue and sprayed triflo teflon spray on it. my a/c problem went away along with the groaning. without taking it apart all i can think is that the linkage was binding and the blend door was not going full travel thereby allowing hot air to get in. hope that helps. by

 

I finally climbed under there and watched and listened as I worked the floor and dash vents with the controls on the dash. Both the blue and yellow circled items in my photo above are motors for the flaps inside the blower box. I think my fear has been confirmed. The flaps are having a hard time moving once the box warms up, whether from the heater core blowing hot air through for heat or when it gets hot in summer (I usually have this problem in summer, it went away when it got colder in fall).

When I work the controls, I can hear what sounds like rubber moving against a hard surface, like the plastic in the blower box. I assume the flaps inside have a rubber piece on the edges to keep air moving in the desired direction. That rubber rubs hard enough to cause it to jump. You can see the motors vibate a little as the flaps inside are moving. The motos in the photo above actually shift a little before they reach the stopping point.

I don't think there's anything I can do externally. My best chance would be to unscrew the motors and see if I can spray the shafts with something but I'm not sure that would help if it's the rubber edges of the flaps inside the box that are getting stuck.

At lease I know what's happening now.

 

so I have a similar problem.... here is my thread
https://www.f150online.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=309006

I have had the lower motor off, if you take out those 3 little cap screws and electrical connection the motor comes off.

I took it appart (little clips) to see how it all worked for kicks and see if i had sand or something wierd in there. That part is only $40 bucks so its cheep enough to toss money at.
The point being is the shaft if left exposed when that motor is off should you want to spray lube or whatever in there..... I didnt try that or see a need.

hope that helps.

 

In an attempt to contribute something to this forum, I had a similar problem this week with 04 screw. Vents werent responding to the controller at all. The air ended up blowing out the front dash vents all the time. I came across this post and it seemed somewhat simillar the problem I had. So in an attemp/guess to fix the problem I replaced the two little motors pictured it this thread. They only cost 26 apiece. When I went to put them in I couldnt line up the shafts to attach to what I would assume are the blend doors. So I gave in and took it to the dealer. They had them replaced in just a couple hours. Since I tore the old ones apart I dont know if they were actually bad.

Here is the part that I havent read anywhere else, which posibly leads me to believe the dealer was feeling me full of bull or no else has actually came across this yet. They said they just calibrated the system and the old ones were probly ok. So this may be another avenue to go down as opposed to the guessing game I started. Anyway hope it helps.

 

I had this problem 2 weeks ago...

I'm still under warranty though so I took it to the dealer and they replaced the actuators (I think) and the problem was solved.