My air flow Accuator died yesterday so I have a replacement my question is how do you align the gears together? I know on the Accuator body itself you have the line on the medal piece in line with the center line of the plastic body. But how about the white gear on the Accuator to where it meets the gear on the air flow door itself
Another Accuator problems
- Thread starter Zack2003
- Start date
Mooseman
Moderator
AFAIK, new actuators are set to the default position of the door with no actuator (flap down). If it isn't, then just insert it according to the alignment indents and turn the actuator to align the screw holes.
Got the new actuator in works great but makes 2 bad pops every time you go to panel. I have reset it 6 times. And always does the bad popping. Wandering if I have the actuator gear and blend door gear not lined up right but it's almost in possible to see the gears once the actuator is installed
- Jul 22, 2015
- 2,724
You might be able to align it better, but I can tell you from experience that my actuator will pop a couple of times when I switch modes. I've been driving it like that for two years now, as well.
(yes, I have the replacement ready to go - but the old one keeps working, even after I interrupt battery power and it spends about a week recalibrating for the first 10 minutes after starting. After that, it only pops for a couple of seconds when I switch modes (or maybe it's temp? I forget...LOL)
Granted, if you've got popping with a new one, you probably want to rectify that, seeing how hard they are to get to - don't want the new one to break.
(yes, I have the replacement ready to go - but the old one keeps working, even after I interrupt battery power and it spends about a week recalibrating for the first 10 minutes after starting. After that, it only pops for a couple of seconds when I switch modes (or maybe it's temp? I forget...LOL)
Granted, if you've got popping with a new one, you probably want to rectify that, seeing how hard they are to get to - don't want the new one to break.
When I first got the trailblazer it did that and drove me crazy so I changed it and it worked great. And on Sunday I was detailing the insides good and the battery died and every sense then it won't work right I put a new one on and still pops. Got another one suppose to be here tomorrow so hopefully that fixes it
$ Khalid ! 9130
Member
Happened to me as well, I UST manually changed the old actuator to blow from the vents. works great so far, I rarely use the other modes so its all hood for now. Maybe one day when I have more money to change it out and get a new one in perfectly 
Mathoran
Member
- May 3, 2012
- 56
When i replaced mine it took me about 6 tries at least before i got the white plastic gear aligned properly. Mine would keep clicking when it wasn't aligned properly. I don't know if that's the popping sound you mean but i just kept pulling it out and rotating the plastic gear a little till it worked right and was quiet.
This is the comment I was wanting lol how did you move the gear? Are you talking about moving the white gear or the gear on the flap door? I think this is what's happening to me
If you've got patience these actuators are repairable to better than original condition. They commonly fail when the final drive plastic gear cracks. I repaired the three on the drivers side - reinforced the hub with steel wire and thermally molded to the metal insert. One gear also had missing teeth - I melted plastic from an old gear onto the damaged area and cut new teeth with a dremel and a cutting wheel.
One year has gone by - so far so good
One year has gone by - so far so good
$ Khalid ! 9130
Member
If you've got patience these actuators are repairable to better than original condition. They commonly fail when the final drive plastic gear cracks. I repaired the three on the drivers side - reinforced the hub with steel wire and thermally molded to the metal insert. One gear also had missing teeth - I melted plastic from an old gear onto the damaged area and cut new teeth with a dremel and a cutting wheel.
One year has gone by - so far so good
Do u have any pictures as to what you did? I know asking you to go get some would be just silly
None of my gears were cracked. Don't really know what happened to it. It wouldn't move or nothing. Then the new one worked great but popped so I replaced it with a second one and its working great
Yes, but they're on a sd card somewhere.........Do u have any pictures as to what you did? I know asking you to go get some would be just silly
Here's one. You can see the gear with 2 radial cracks. First I crazy glued the halves together, and then wrapped a thin steel wire around the hub and twisted it tight. Only one side can have the wire - the other is a bearing side. The key is to heat the metal insert until it's just hot enough to melt plastic and push the gear on with light finger pressure until it seats. This forms the gear to the ridges around the insert and bonds it to the insert.
All of the actuators used around the period of TB's production in GM cars will eventually fail. During manufacture the plastic gear is pressed with great force - and you can see what happens when you apply too much stress to plastic.....
I had one actuator with a completely cracked gear and the other two were half cracked. I did this to all of them while the dashboard was disassembled - you don't want take apart the dash three times
More than a year later all are still working well
I'm happy because I did it at no cost There are probably thousands of these actuators in landfills around the country - most could be rebuilt.
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