1995 acura integra. The climate control is stuck on heat, the furthest it moves to cool is halfway and thats it! I've tried WD40, but to no avail. How do I take this thing apart or are there any other suggestions? Thanks for your help

 

Try doing this, if you look under the dash toward behind the radio deck of your passenger side. You should see bunch of moving levers when you move your temperture switch back and forth. Look and see if anything is blocking the levers from moving all the way. You can spray Wd40 or smear grease to see if it helps. Remember you need to look under the dash, where the passenger feet normally would be.


[Modified by LostGsr, 3:29 AM 7/6/2001]

 

I believe I can speak from experience on this one:

It was really cold, and when my gf hopped in the car, she immediately pulled the level all the way to the "hot" side. And it promptly snapped off (yes! Acura reliability!!). Soooo, luckily, I had my trusty Helms manual, and started flipping through it and looking for a solution.

What LostGsr said is only half of the equation. The heater valve cable is above the passenger's feet-well. If you lie with your back on the floormat, and look up, there should be an assembly with a few arms. One of the arms has a small metal piece with a hook at the end that connects to a plastic assembly that almost resembles a four-armed starfish (or a cross, or the "+" sign). Check to see if any of these cables move freely. It could be that the problem is here.

Also, there are levers behind the switches you use to select cold/hot air. To get access here, you need to pop out the hazard and rear-defroster buttons, as well as disconnect a few screws behind those buttons. It could be the lever behind the **** is stuck. For a quick solution, you could physically force the lever behind the **** all the way to the cold side. That might work...

If you'd like, I can scan in the pertinent sections of the Helms manual, and that may help...

At the end, though, I ended up taking my car into the dealership because I didn't have the tools nor parts to fix the problem (broken control arm). I believe the total, parts & labor, came out to $500? It was an extra $300, because they found that the heater blower motor was broken. Hmm. Lucky me.


[Modified by marmaladeboy, 4:54 AM 7/6/2001]

 

Also check in the engine bay where the cable comes through the firewall. You will see the cable connected to a valve on one of your coolant lines(about 1.5 in from the firewall), make sure it isn't bound up. My teg had a engine fire and that valve got alittle melted so now when i put it all the way to the cool side it slowly works it way back to hot

 

Thanks for the heads up!! Those little arms were stuck because a RCA wire was wrapped around them.. ughhh, my fault, but Thanks again guys!

 

You've already gotten a good description of where to look for the bits to move. The following may or not add much...

I had the same experience on my '89 'teg (including the overzealous girlfriend [now wife] jamming on the controls).

I ended up paying to have this fixed once (about 3 bills at my non-dealer mechanic...lots of labor to get in there on an '89) and he said I should expect it again in a few years because the design was dubious. Sure enough a couple-three years later...pwang...same thing.

Not wanting to blow another $300 clams the fix was every spring I'd crawl under the dash and find the actual arm and slide it to cool and every fall to warm. I went like this for a couple of years until it was the least of my worries with the car and then bought a 2k GS-R. The bummer is, it feels like the same basic design is lying in wait to ^&*%$ me again.

-Jon