Who'd a thunk it? I mean all I had to do was plug in the connector, slide the resistor into the duct, and put in a couple of screws. Five minutes tops, right? Foolish boy. You forgot to sacrifice your knuckles
when you started this project and now you will pay.
The connector goes on okay, but the resistor won't slide into the duct. The photo shows why. You can't see it directly, only by using the display screen was I able to aim the camera to get this shot. The slot is only half wide. That works fine for the original, authentic Chrysler resistor, but the off brand one from NAPA is a different critter. It has half a dozen pins sticking out back side, sticking out just enough to prevent it from sliding in easily.
I try carving away at the obstruction with my pocket knife, but the plastic is really hard, and I cannot really see what I am doing. So I get out the Dremel tool and an eighth inch drill bit and proceed to grind away at the offending obstruction. That works fine and then zip, the drill bit vanishes. Where'd it go? Near as I can tell it got sucked up into the duct work. The high speed and the spiral grooves conspired to pull it out of the collet. Put in another drill bit. Tighten the collet, against all that is holy, with pliers. More grinding and we are good to go. Except for that missing drill bit. I dig up a magnet and poke around in the hole, but no go. Insert the resistor.
All we need now is the two screws. They came out easy enough, it should be easy enough to get them back in. No, it's not. Normally in an upside down situation like this, I would put the screw through the hole in the resistor, hold it place with a nutdriver and slide the whole thing into place. But that's not working here. I'm lying across the door sill with my head on the floor so I can see the general area. My arms are folded up in front of me, and I have a rug burn on my left elbow. The drop light won't stay pointed in the right direction and I am having a devil of a time getting the screws into the holes that I can't see.
Just then my wife drives up and asks me what I'm working on. I'll be lucky if she let's me in the house tonight.
I eventually got the screws in, and the new resistor has apparently fixed the problem with the blower, now all I need is to replace the hush panel and the glove box, vacuum up the debris and pick up my tools. When I turned the fan on high I heard the drill bit rattle in the vent.
Update: see
Part 1 &
Part 3.
Update January 2017 replaced missing pictures.
3 comments:
Be grateful. The Double Secret Automatic Climate Control on my car is utterly inscrutable and probably unfixable should it ever need fixing. I am not heartened by the fact that it took an actual dealership three tries to replace the A/C compressor, and during one such they broke one of the lines. Eventually National HQ had to airlift them parts to save their face.
"Double Secret Automatic Climate Control on my car is utterly inscrutable". What a great discription. We have one of those in the Mitsubishi. I have yet to get it to do what I want. It has a thermostat and it is forever turning on the A/C when the weather is fine. I suppose if it was my car I would learn to deal with it, but it's not, so I haven't.
Thank you! Very helpful.
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