First, if I am in the wrong section to be posting a question, forgive me, I have tried to figure this out, but not with much luck.

Here's the deal. The heat in my 06 does not work. I flushed the heater core, and it seemed fine. I looked behind the climate controller and saw what appeared to be a vaccumm connection with no hose on it. I could not feel a lose hose by reaching up behind it. I took the bezel lose, and found a wire coming out of the heat control.

so, is the heat set by some electronic means, or by vacumm? Everything else works fine (a/c, blower fan...) just no heat.

Thanks for the help.. kby

 

Welcome to DF
Someone should show up soon with an answer

 

The blend doors are electronic, and when working properly, you can hear them in action.

Before doing anything else, the first thing I would do is listen. With the ignition switch in the On position (but not running), and the fan switch in the Off position, rotate the Mode Control (floor, vents, defrost) **** so you hear what the actuators should sound like. Then, rotate the Temperature Control ****, and listen for the same sound. If you don't hear any movement of the blend door actuator, it could be a faulty/disconnected blend door/actuator or A/C-heater control.

 

Thanks for the info, I'll check to see if I can hear the blend door actuator moving... If it does not move, is there a way to determine if the controller is bad (do they go bad?) or if its more than that. I assume that the wire coming from the controller works its way into the huge black component with the doors in it... I hope that there is an exterior clip to which this wire connects, so if it is disconnected, it will be easy to determine. I'll look... thanks again. kby

 

According to the wiring diagram, the dark blue/light green wire coming out of the AC-heater control goes directly to the blend door actuator.

Per the service manual, the blend door actuator can be accessed by removing the instrument panel. It does also note that this actuator is interchangeable with the actuators for the mode-air and recirculation-air doors, so you should have the ability to troubleshoot a good one for a bad one if it comes down to it.

 

Thanks for the help. If I remember correctly, from a few days ago, the wire I saw was orange. But, I'll check again.



"Per the service manual, the blend door actuator can be accessed by removing the instrument panel. " - does this mean the center panel (radio and climate control stuff) or the dash panel behind the steering wheel (tach, speepdo and such?). My hope is you are referring the center panel...

Again, thanks... for the help, it is greatly appreciated. kip

 

Per the service manual:

Dark Blue/Light Green controls the Blend door,
Dark blue controls Mode door 1,
Light Blue/Red controls Mode door 2,
Dark Blue/Tan controls the Recirculation door,
and Dark Blue/Light Blue is the common door driver which connects all the doors into a circuit on the wiring harness (they're essentially wired in parallel).

It says the Blend door actuator is located on the top of the HVAC housing, and can be accessed for service by removing the "instrument panel" which, looking further into the manual, is shown as the whole giant panel that spans from door to door...essentially everything between the front seats and the firewall.

On the other hand, it says the Mode door actuators can be accessed for service from underneath the driver's side of the instrument panel, and the Recirculation door can be accessed for service by removing the air inlet housing.

Go figure, right? Always the hard one.

Have you tried listening to see if the Blend actuator is moving yet?

 

Sorry for the slow reply... Yes, I checked that yesterday, and sure enough, I could hear the doors opening when using the **** that changes from a/c to defrost and so on... but of course no noise when turning the heat control. So, my guess, is that either the wire is not connected or the thing that actually opens the door is bad or the control **** is bad... Any guess as to which it could be? I know that I do not even want to think about taking out the dash. So, I will attempt to check on the drivers side and the passenger side to see what I can figure out. But if it comes to the dash... it may never work again. I purchased the truck used, and now wonder if this was part of the reason someone got rid of it. I purchased it when the weather was warm and never dreamed I needed to check the heater control. Oh well. I'll continue to check things out... thanks much for the help - kip

 

Seeing as this AC-heater control was used on not only Dakotas, but Rams of that generation and possibly more vehicles, I would guess you may find one at a local yard for cheap if it comes down to it...at least as a last-ditch effort to try a swap before completely resigning to the idea of it never getting fixed. I would also assume if the problem is at the HVAC end (be it the wiring, actuator or blend door), that it probably wouldn't be a disconnected wire (outside of factory install) since it's such a hard place to access and meddle with. But trying out a different controller, as you know, would not be a difficult thing to do.

Good luck.

 

Two other things that crossed my mind:

I would probably also rule out a bad/stuck blend door too, since you would most likely hear the actuator motor at least trying to move it.

Also, if it's any comfort, I just discovered there is actually a whole list of DTC (check-engine light) codes for Blend door control circuit performance (among DTCs for the other doors), such as for excessive current draw, shorted circuit or a short to voltage...which would require the AC-heater control to actually sense there is a malfunction in the Blend door/actuator or wiring. Now assuming the Blend door itself is still good (you can't hear the actuator even trying to move it), and the control circuit is coming back with no DTC faults as reported by the AC-Heater control when there is obviously a problem (and should cause the control to set off a DTC), this pretty much tells me you may have a bad AC-Heater control.

I would definitely check around for different one to try.