Climate Control

[Zweet_Z32]

hi i've been watching the site for awhile and i just recently purchased a 300z tt that runs great except im havin some problems with the climate control. i ran the diagnostics on it (which understanding the readouts was a little confusing for me) and when it came to the codes part it seemed to show ambient sensor, cabin upper sensor, cabin lower sensor and sunload sensor. is it just a matter of replacing these sensors? if so where are they located and how can i test them?

oh yeah and the problems i was having is the car only blows air out of the defrost and a little from the floor, and adjusting between temperatures does little if nothing to the actual temp of the air blowing out of the vents.

a little more detailed write-up on this would have been very helpful.

[OUKNO]

Yea the ac pods are a bit whacky mine only blows through my vents but i ot no reason why it won't go to the defrost or feet vents

no idea where the sensors are mabe try the shop key5 site on here it gives a bunch of good answers

[.::SHIFT_Z32::.]

I know exactly what is wrong! The same exact thing happened to my car when I bought it a year ago. My climate system would switch between the different vents but changing the temp did absolutely nothing. I bought the car in the summer and the guy only told me that only AC did not work. I couldn't really tell that it wasn't blowing hot air because it was really hot outside when I test drove the car so it felt like it was blowing hot air. But, apparently the heat did not work either and I found that out a few months later when i started getting colder and it would not blow hot air!!

Not knowing what was wrong or how to fix it, I decided to take my Z to the nissan dealership thinking that they knew more about the car than the average person....WRONG! They said it was the pod with the digital display and the buttons that was bad. They said that it was no longer available from nissan and that I would have to find a used one. Luckily I was not charged the diagnostic fee because they could not get the part. So i found one on Ebay and bought it for about $80. It finally came and i installed it, but, it did absolutely nothing! I was pissed. It was already mid october and the weather was getting pretty cold. I started searching this forum and, in mid-November, finally found someone who had that same problem and knew how to fix it. They wrote up a very detailed description with many pictures on how to fix it. I followed it and it fixed the problem. The fix however was a pain in the a$$ and rather costly but definitely worth it.

There are 4 little electric motors that work in unison with the climate control. There is the one that switches airflow to the different vents, one that opens and closes the heater core valve to let hot coolant flow through the heater core, one that moves a door to direct air to flow through the heater core to heat the air or bypasses the pathway to the heater core when using the air conditioner. The 4th motor is for switching between recycled or fresh air. What happens is these motors burn out and stop functioning. So from your description, it sounds like your vent controller motor is stuck in the same position as well as your coolant valve motor. I am not sure about the other two and you wont be able to tell until you get under the dash.

I will warn you, though, that it is a complete PITA (pain in the a$$) to replace these motors. You basically have to pull off your entire dashboard including your speedo cluster, radio bezel, pod cluster, center console, glove box and all other items associated with the dash. This is only half the story. Once you finally get the dashboard off, you then basically have to disassemble and unplug every part under the dash including all of the climate control vent piping, the long support bar that holds the car apart, the AC Unit ( which means you have to drain the AC lines), disconnet the inlet and outlet hoses to the heater in the fire wall (which are also a PITA to get to in the tight engine compartment), unplug all the sensors and wires that connect to the brain of the climate control unit and then finally you can remove the heater core unit which includes three of the four motors. For the 3 motors on the Heater core unit, it cost about $320 bucks.I didn't replace the recirculate/fresh air motor because I didn't think about that one at the time, and it really isn't detrimental to the functioning of the climate control system if it does go out.

I am not trying to scare you into NOT fixing it, but i just wanted to let you know what all is entailed in this fix.

It isn't an extremely hard fix, but very very very very time consuming. I had someone help me and together it took us about 15 to 20 hours or so to completely disassemble the dash, replace the motors and put it all back together. So about 30 to 40 man hours was put into this project. You would definitely want to do this yourself because labor costs from a shop would be ridiculous for this kind of fix.

If I were you, sorry to say this, but I would hurry and sell the car and let the next sucker deal with the problem. Unless the car is too nice, or you have dropped too much money in it to sell it, I would definitely get rid of the damn thing and find a newer one that has a functioning climate control. However, if you have the tools, are mechanicly inclined, have someone to help you, and have plenty of patience, then it is definitely possible to fix. You could probably do it in a weekend if you spent every waking minute working on it.

ALSO, just a side note.... if you live in a place with cold winters you will have no choice but to fix it by winter. You can't defrost your windows without hot air blowing on them.

If you are interested in fixing it yourself, i can get you the part numbers, give you a detailed description on how to fix it, and answers any questions that you have.

GOOD LUCK!!!!!

[sir.86.300zX]

I recently bought a 1986 300zx and my digital climate control isnt working. It was when I bought it , than had a cd player installed ( took out the stock cassette player/ radio). For a little while the cd player would randomly shut off than the climate control would snap on for about a minute than shut off again. I brought it back to the place I had the deck installed and the guy put a relay in for the deck and now it never shuts off, but my digital climate control never turns on. the faster I drive the harder HOT air blows out my defrost and feet. Do you think it would be the relays? If you know what it is exactly let me know what parts I need and how to fix it if you have some time! Thanks A lot!

[Pimpin in my fairlady z]

I am having the same problem. My a/c is just blowing out air but its not cold. I dont know what it is but from reading this forum i think its a motor. Check out my forum and maybe you can help me out.

[KPeeZy]

I know exactly what is wrong! The same exact thing happened to my car when I bought it a year ago. My climate system would switch between the different vents but changing the temp did absolutely nothing. I bought the car in the summer and the guy only told me that only AC did not work. I couldn't really tell that it wasn't blowing hot air because it was really hot outside when I test drove the car so it felt like it was blowing hot air. But, apparently the heat did not work either and I found that out a few months later when i started getting colder and it would not blow hot air!!

Not knowing what was wrong or how to fix it, I decided to take my Z to the nissan dealership thinking that they knew more about the car than the average person....WRONG! They said it was the pod with the digital display and the buttons that was bad. They said that it was no longer available from nissan and that I would have to find a used one. Luckily I was not charged the diagnostic fee because they could not get the part. So i found one on Ebay and bought it for about $80. It finally came and i installed it, but, it did absolutely nothing! I was pissed. It was already mid october and the weather was getting pretty cold. I started searching this forum and, in mid-November, finally found someone who had that same problem and knew how to fix it. They wrote up a very detailed description with many pictures on how to fix it. I followed it and it fixed the problem. The fix however was a pain in the a$$ and rather costly but definitely worth it.

There are 4 little electric motors that work in unison with the climate control. There is the one that switches airflow to the different vents, one that opens and closes the heater core valve to let hot coolant flow through the heater core, one that moves a door to direct air to flow through the heater core to heat the air or bypasses the pathway to the heater core when using the air conditioner. The 4th motor is for switching between recycled or fresh air. What happens is these motors burn out and stop functioning. So from your description, it sounds like your vent controller motor is stuck in the same position as well as your coolant valve motor. I am not sure about the other two and you wont be able to tell until you get under the dash.

I will warn you, though, that it is a complete PITA (pain in the a$$) to replace these motors. You basically have to pull off your entire dashboard including your speedo cluster, radio bezel, pod cluster, center console, glove box and all other items associated with the dash. This is only half the story. Once you finally get the dashboard off, you then basically have to disassemble and unplug every part under the dash including all of the climate control vent piping, the long support bar that holds the car apart, the AC Unit ( which means you have to drain the AC lines), disconnet the inlet and outlet hoses to the heater in the fire wall (which are also a PITA to get to in the tight engine compartment), unplug all the sensors and wires that connect to the brain of the climate control unit and then finally you can remove the heater core unit which includes three of the four motors. For the 3 motors on the Heater core unit, it cost about $320 bucks.I didn't replace the recirculate/fresh air motor because I didn't think about that one at the time, and it really isn't detrimental to the functioning of the climate control system if it does go out.

I am not trying to scare you into NOT fixing it, but i just wanted to let you know what all is entailed in this fix.

It isn't an extremely hard fix, but very very very very time consuming. I had someone help me and together it took us about 15 to 20 hours or so to completely disassemble the dash, replace the motors and put it all back together. So about 30 to 40 man hours was put into this project. You would definitely want to do this yourself because labor costs from a shop would be ridiculous for this kind of fix.

If I were you, sorry to say this, but I would hurry and sell the car and let the next sucker deal with the problem. Unless the car is too nice, or you have dropped too much money in it to sell it, I would definitely get rid of the damn thing and find a newer one that has a functioning climate control. However, if you have the tools, are mechanicly inclined, have someone to help you, and have plenty of patience, then it is definitely possible to fix. You could probably do it in a weekend if you spent every waking minute working on it.

ALSO, just a side note.... if you live in a place with cold winters you will have no choice but to fix it by winter. You can't defrost your windows without hot air blowing on them.

If you are interested in fixing it yourself, i can get you the part numbers, give you a detailed description on how to fix it, and answers any questions that you have.

GOOD LUCK!!!!!

wow

[cwolf2]

New to the group. I've been searching the web for four days looking for an answer to this freaky problem. You mentioned on your post that you could provide part numbers and detailed description. Would you mind sending that to me? I would greatly appreciate it.

[spooolin]

I also have a problem like that... But Mine is a lil different,

WEll mine will blow cold air to the defrost vents If I put it on defrost and the ac works that way.. But if I dont have the Defrost on I get hot air that comes out of the foot vents all the time that like bakes my legs to the extent that they get all itchy lol...

Does anyone know of a fix? and what I can do.. I also thought it was my climate control pod.. But im thinkin its not now....

[.::SHIFT_Z32::.]

Okay here are the part numbers for the AUTOMATIC climate control system. Don't know if yours has the MANUAL climate control.... if it does numbers will be completely different :

27731-Z32002 Actuator Assy-Mode (switches airflow between defrost, face, and feet vents) $82.97

27732-Z32002 Actuator Assy-Air Mix (opens and closes valve to heater core) $120.61

27732-Z32004 Actuator Assy-Air Mix (switches flow of air to heater core or bypasses it for A/C) $119.75

The three electrical motors listed above are located on the heater core unit (unit directly behind radio bezel)

27730-Z32002 Actuator-Air Intake Box (switches between recycled and fresh air) $64.23

The motor that switches between recycled and fresh air is located on the far right passenger side behind the glove box on the blower unit.

I bought my motors online from courtesy nissan parts. I don't know if these part numbers are universal between all nissan dealerships or if courtesy just uses these. Here is a link to the courtesy nissan site with an illustration of the parts. Just make sure you look at the correct illustration. There are two separate illustrations for the manual and automatic climate control system. Click on the numbers next to the parts to get the full part number and part name. If yours is the Automatic climate control system pick the part description that has GLL in it. Just GL is for the manual climate control. Hope this helps. If you have any more questions just ask. Would love to help in any way.

http://www.courtesyparts.com/b....html

[Ranger39]

My car only blows air out of the defroster and nowhere else. Do you guys think it is the motor that's blown and is there an easy way to find out? Also can someone tell me exactly where the motor is located?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Taylor

[cwolf2]

It could be that the door that switches between the defrost, vent and floor is stuck in one position. This could be motor, vacuum line or debris. Maybe someone else can give you a good answer.

[Rauko]

Hi, I'm new the the forums, I just bought a '90 300zx 2+2 last week and one of the known problems was that the heat doesn't work. It just blows cold air, I tested to make sure it changes from defrost to vents, to feet and it does. I'm pretty sure it is the problem .::SHIFT_Z32::. posted above. I was wondering if anyone had the detailed description with pictures on how to fix it? (Or a link to it) I live in st. louis, MO its been amazing weather but it's going to get cold soon and heat would be nice.It is a 1990 300zx 2+2 with the automatic climate control.

I'm looking forward to having a wonderful car if I can get the heat fixed.

[cwolf2]

Check your heater core if it's only blowing cold air.

[andrez]

good advice and all........except knowingly selling or "pawning it" to someone else "sucker" without telling them first.................KARMA