Questions and Answers

Ford Windstar Blend Door Motor Q. Mr. Vincent Ciulla, I am having trouble with my heater. The heater core and thermostat are both fine. As far as I can tell, the blend door actuator is not working. I removed the blend door actuator and used a Torx tool and flipped the door to the other position and I have heat. As long as the blower is on the door remains in this position, once the blower is shut off, the door falls to the "closed" position due to gravity.

I went to a local junk yard and procured another blend door actuator as well as the instrument cluster containing the blower switches, A/C switch, potentiometer, etc. Of course I was shocked to find out none of these parts fixed my problem.

I should also mention that I had checked every fuse in the inside fuse box and under the hood before I started looking for replacement parts. I checked them visually and the second time (because I was so puzzled that it still did not work) with my Digital Multi Meter.

I decided that now since I have two blend door actuators that I would take my original one apart and just relocate the engagement point so that when I reinstalled it, the door would remain open, allowing heat to flow inside the vehicle.

This does work, but I still need to understand and fix the problem. I looked at the relays but could not really identify which one (if any) would have anything to do with the blend door. It seems odd that when I connect my DMM to the plug that plugs into the blend door actuator I don't get anything near 12 volts.

When I had my blend door actuator apart, there is a small motor (12 volts I guessed, nothing to lose though I now have two) and when I "gave" it 12 volts directly, it did spin. I have been doing automotive repair for 20 years or so, this is really puzzling. Would you please help, and if not can you point me in the correct direction?

1995 Ford Windstar
3.8 liter
Automatic transmission
70,000 miles
The van does have A/C and Heat Controls in the back as well.

Thank you,
Rich

A. The blend door gets its power from fuse number 21 through the pink/black wire. Then power is routed to the Temperature Control Potentiometer which controls air temperature. Voltage at the yellow/light green wire is based on the setting of the TCP.

If you don't have 12 volts at the pink/black wire and the fuse is good, you need to check the pink/black wire itself. It's probably broken somewhere between the fuse box and the blend door motor.