Hey all, little thread about my experience with actuators in the cooling system in case it helps someone else down the track. Some of the info may exist elsewhere, my specific solution seemed to be unique, perhaps owing to impossibility of sourcing replacement actuator as a whole.
Started with the dreaded clicking somewhere behind the radio - couldn't ever get eyes on an issue by looking up under the dash with torch etc.
Realised with some time and testing that the clicking would go away when moving temp slider toward hot. Sometimes it could stay in the cool zone, but eventually, as it warmed up, I'd have to be blasting full heat in order to avoid the click. Won't pretend to understand exactly how the temp sensors work in concert with the actuator and make that constant adjustment necessary.
Anyway after 18+ months of just avoiding using cold air, decided it's time to get to the bottom of it. Dash came out and now I could observe the clicking in action on the actuator installed atop the heater box. Sure enough when moving armatures into the cold position, it would hit a point where it just 'stuck' and repeatedly clicked in its attempts to move a force that it simply couldn't.
To cut a couple weeks of troubleshooting the actuator itself short, I ultimately determined that the only issue was wear on one or more of the internal gears. This was discovered by replacing the internal gears with those of the mode actuator (the one that determines WHERE the air blows). Sure enough the problem relocated to existing when I chose the vents to blow at face, and my blend door could now operate freely (After liberally lubing anything and everything that the actuator was actuating... especially the cable to the heat valve that runs through firewall).
No visible wear or damage to the gears... was expecting a tooth or two to be missing, but no such obvious evidence of the problem.
Queue another couple weeks of trying desperately to source a replacement actuator... new or second hand didn't matter, couldn't find one.
The part number for the 3 AC actuators present are all based on 87106. 87106-60070, 87106-60050 etc.
The A/C Blend, Mode, and intake (recirc or fresh) each have a slightly different form factor varying a tiny bit in size and thus suitability for the bracket they mount to - but internally the gears are the same.
The intake actuator (which sits to the left of the glove compartment, high up in my RHD) has the easiest job of all... as it only moves one arm. So I put the weak gears in there, stole its good gears for the mode actuator... and now all are working happily.
Pro tips: Don't remove the arm from the output shaft. It's located in a specific position relative to the contacts on the gear that it's attached to. Not impossible to get it back into the right position, but there's no actual reason to remove it that I found.
Take note of what position the doors are in when removing the actuator, and attempt to re-install in that same position. The manual suggests: Recirc, Cold, Defrost(windshield), so just go with setting the AC to that first, then taking actuator out, and if needed move the linkages for doors etc into the correct position for those settings when reinstalling actuator.
Haven't taken a nice pic to show where they all live in dash, but here's some of the actuators themselves: (again, all basically the same inside, just different housing, bracket, arm and plug)
Started with the dreaded clicking somewhere behind the radio - couldn't ever get eyes on an issue by looking up under the dash with torch etc.
Realised with some time and testing that the clicking would go away when moving temp slider toward hot. Sometimes it could stay in the cool zone, but eventually, as it warmed up, I'd have to be blasting full heat in order to avoid the click. Won't pretend to understand exactly how the temp sensors work in concert with the actuator and make that constant adjustment necessary.
Anyway after 18+ months of just avoiding using cold air, decided it's time to get to the bottom of it. Dash came out and now I could observe the clicking in action on the actuator installed atop the heater box. Sure enough when moving armatures into the cold position, it would hit a point where it just 'stuck' and repeatedly clicked in its attempts to move a force that it simply couldn't.
To cut a couple weeks of troubleshooting the actuator itself short, I ultimately determined that the only issue was wear on one or more of the internal gears. This was discovered by replacing the internal gears with those of the mode actuator (the one that determines WHERE the air blows). Sure enough the problem relocated to existing when I chose the vents to blow at face, and my blend door could now operate freely (After liberally lubing anything and everything that the actuator was actuating... especially the cable to the heat valve that runs through firewall).
No visible wear or damage to the gears... was expecting a tooth or two to be missing, but no such obvious evidence of the problem.
Queue another couple weeks of trying desperately to source a replacement actuator... new or second hand didn't matter, couldn't find one.
The part number for the 3 AC actuators present are all based on 87106. 87106-60070, 87106-60050 etc.
The A/C Blend, Mode, and intake (recirc or fresh) each have a slightly different form factor varying a tiny bit in size and thus suitability for the bracket they mount to - but internally the gears are the same.
The intake actuator (which sits to the left of the glove compartment, high up in my RHD) has the easiest job of all... as it only moves one arm. So I put the weak gears in there, stole its good gears for the mode actuator... and now all are working happily.
Pro tips: Don't remove the arm from the output shaft. It's located in a specific position relative to the contacts on the gear that it's attached to. Not impossible to get it back into the right position, but there's no actual reason to remove it that I found.
Take note of what position the doors are in when removing the actuator, and attempt to re-install in that same position. The manual suggests: Recirc, Cold, Defrost(windshield), so just go with setting the AC to that first, then taking actuator out, and if needed move the linkages for doors etc into the correct position for those settings when reinstalling actuator.
Haven't taken a nice pic to show where they all live in dash, but here's some of the actuators themselves: (again, all basically the same inside, just different housing, bracket, arm and plug)
