Berts24

iTrader: (3)

look at the TSB posted above some dealers will want to take out the heater box to put in new blend doors, this requires A LOT of labor, not sure of the book time. Call your local dealer see if they can give you a quote

Berserker

Yup.

The whole quote is $1100-ish. About $450 parts and $650 labor. From what they told me it sounded like everything: the replacement for the broken part, the new TSB parts, blend door, everything.

I'm probably just going to suck it up and pay it. I've been wrestling with that freaking knob for almost 5 and 1/2 years. Having it work properly would be pretty nice. Not being able to adjust the temperature is not an option during Houston winters; the temperature fluctuates too much.

I've been planning to put money into the car anyway, now that it's paid off. I just thought powder-coating the calipers or something similar would be my first big expense.

But, damn, if I think about it as a $1k to fix a knob it makes my head want to explode. I have to think about it as a few hundred to fix the broken part, another few hundred to make it work like it always should have worked, and another few hundred to save me the hassle of trying to do the work myself. And then ignore that there's another couple of hundred in there...

The ability to rationalize is vastly underrated!

Berts24

iTrader: (3)

^^Yes I hear ya!! I have the new gears on mine, I greased them and I still struggle with it. I feel it's getting better, problem was I didn't touch it all summer but not that it's cold in the mornings I've been moving it, now that I greased it and moving it a lot I think it's getting a little better but I just wished it moved as easily as the function knob!!!!!

Berserker

Did you get all the fixes (like the blend door), or just gears? It would suck if I paid a grand and had the same jacked-up knob when it was all said and done.

I'm going through the 5 Stages of Denial on this. I was at the Anger stage on Monday. The Depression stage is coming up. Once I get to Acceptance I'll bite the bullet and get the repairs.

A little cold weather might accelerate my progress through the stages.


Middletown, huh? I was up there (Cromwell, actually) on business a couple of years ago. Pretty area. Some people in our office there told me about the excitement when they arrested that Yale lab tech murdering buttwipe a few weeks ago.

naucrx

iTrader: (19)

I finally got around to replacing the gears on my '03 this weekend, but I ran into an issue. The cables that run from the control unit(knob) to the gears was slightly bent from all the times I tried to turn the knob and it got hung up. Luckily I had a spare unit a friend gave me before he sold his Evo. So I swapped that out, and still had difficulty. I was just about to throw in the towel when I decided to try to flip the gears manually from under the dash. I flipped them back and forth several times, and regreased, and now it works like a champ.

$1k to fix the heater knob? wtf? I guess if you broke the control unit piece then I can see how that would add up, but $1k is way too much...

If the knob broke off in your hand you'll likely have to replace the HVAC control unit, which I think is around $400 (iirc), and then the new gears are around $25. You can replace both the unit and the gears with a pair of pliers and a philips head screwdriver in about 20-30 mins.

Berts24

iTrader: (3)

I the car already had the new gears on it when I bought it a year ago....did they do the blend doors prob. not but i haven't put in the cabin filter....it's on the list of things to do and I actually live on the cromwell line and spend most of my time on the side. Yea the guy that got arrested for the yale shouting was staying at the hotel at exit 21 off of 91.....right in front of the on ramp I take every morning and there was the shooting at weslyn before that....I thought CT was safe!!!!

From 3 to E

iTrader: (13)

sorry if this has been answered already, but how does adding a cabin filter help the situation? just simply filtering debris before it clogs up the system..?

im about to order gears for mine, and im trying to decide if i should order the filter as well..

Berserker

Yeah, the price includes a new control until, as well as all the TSB parts. That includes the blend doors, which requires the dash coming off. 2/3 of the price is labor, and the labor is expensive because of the dash.

I crawled under the dash this evening and moved the gears up and down just as you described. They moved fairly easily, but would sort-of hang up on a bend in the middle of that plastic piece closest to the dash. That's probably why they redesigned it (Side note: there was a pipe under there that was hot as &*#@. What was that?)

I was playing with the idea of trying to yank out the control unit and replace it with one from a junkyard. Your story is encouraging me to give it a shot. (I've had that front panel off before when I yanked the radio to install an XM antenna adapter.) I'm teh suck with tools. But to save $1k I'll get in there and look around.

Berserker

I crawled in there this evening after work, and I've almost got the old control unit out.

(It only took me 10 minutes of staring at it to realize the job is a whole lot easier if you take the radio out. I mention this for future readers who may attempt this same job and who suck more epically than I with tools.)

I disconnected the two wiring harnesses and the two cables. But the sheaths around the cables each clip onto the control unit. I've never seen anything like these clips, and I can't figure out how to get them out. I tugged on them gently; they're in there good.

Any advice would be very much appreciated!

Berserker

Update:

naucrzx set me straight on the cables via PM. They remain attached to the control unit, and the new unit should come with new cables attached.

My control unit is already on order. I'll post an update when it's all done.

Thanks all!

Thoe99

iTrader: (25)

If you don't mind, can you take pics of the process?

Berserker

I'd love to be able to contribute so I could "give something back" to the board. But I think everything is already here.

The thread we're in already already has photos of one of the TSBs and a couple of different sets of pictures of the linkage - including installed pics:
https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/at...m-dsc01545.jpg
https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/7517475-post28.html
https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/7535173-post36.html

Removing the radio has already been covered in multiple places. Here are some:
https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/la...head-unit.html
https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/ev...ation-kit.html
https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/ev...e-din-mod.html

This thread has some stuff about a guy who actually dropped his own dash and did the blend doors (which I'm not doing):
https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/ev...ac-issues.html


The HVAC control unit itself just has a couple of plastic clips (easily breakable!) holding it into the dash (not including the two screws you'll have to remove to get the panel off). Behind the control unit are two wiring harnesses. I am told that the two gear cables remain attached the unit; I'll know more when I get my new part in.

You can get in there, take radio out, and look around in just a few minutes. The first time will probably take longer because you'll be reluctant to pull hard enough to get the panel off (after taking off the knobs and the two screws). I'd taken mine off before when installing some satellite radio stuff, and I was still nervous about yanking on it.

If there's anything you think isn't covered in any of the already-posted stuff, let me know and I'll be happy to try to photograph it. My new linkage is already in, though.

Berserker

Hey: I saw that you were in that other thread I linked, asking about your cables.

When I replaced my linkage, I found that I could easily rotate the gear attached to the blend doors by hand (and hear the doors make that "whoomp" sound). So I'm pretty sure I don't need the blend door work. But if your doors are jammed or hard to turn, that might explain why you see your cable bending. So you might want to perform that check.

If your doors are good, then it sounds like all you'll need are the cables (if you can't find any other reason they are binding).

I don't know whether the cables can be bought separately from the control unit. You'll have to check with Mitsubishi. But I'm hoping to have some extra cables when this is done; I'll hold on to them for you.

evo8inla84

iTrader: (7)

Thanks for the info on this... I already lost like 2 fingers to the dumb HVAC controls..LOL

murderedevo256

iTrader: (5)

Ok so my 03 im pretty sure has never had the cabin filter changed and idk where it is. My heater control worked up until a few weeks ago but flipped from cold to hot really hard. Now it can go all they cold but only about 3/4 the way to hot, and I can not here the door flip and it stays cold in the car. What actually causes it to not switch over to hot im lost reading this thread on where to go with fixing it? its snowing now and I want to try to fix it this week so my girlfriend doesnt yell at how cold it is in the car.lol Should I get new gears, it feels like something is stopping it from turning completely to hot