Heater Levers

[johnnymack]

My winter project is to free up the upper right hand side heater lever. the others work great, but that one seems stuck .....any ideas anyone.

[Wolfmann]

I don't know if we are talking about the same lever but mine was solid really, I had to free off the heater matrix valve (days of soaking in penetrating fluid and even then a little force) and replace the O ring, the cable was also lubricated and it moves with hardly any resistance now. All levers just had cables/linkages lubricated. Both air flaps were also replaced although the plastic lever arms were sheared off the originals so they weren't being moved by the levers anyway.

I would guess from my limited experience that the above must be as bad as it gets although I stand to be corrected. Luckily none of the levers had been damaged. My car was in bits so I can't help about how to access this area.

The large rubber grommet by the raised seam under the bonnet / hood (it has a semicircular cut out in the firewall pad to accomodate it) conceals the heater valve so with it removed it may be possible to see if your valve is sticky, whether the linkage is off and whether the cable is dry.

I'm no expert but hope it helps !

Have you done a search on the site?

Steven.

[Garry]

There has been a bit written about the right hand heater lever sticking.


Here is a comment made in another post by rwmastel some time ago for references

"There are two red controls.
- The one on the left side (driver's side in USA) controls the valve in the heater core, so it is like the "master" heat lever that turns the heat on/off for the whole car.
- The one on the right side controls a flap that allows heat to the right side of the car IF the "master" heat lever is on.
- Turn these away from the red dot (wedge?) to turn heat off.See
http://www.sl113.org/forums/index.php?topic=2545.0

Another lever, with up/down arrows, controls from which vents the air flows.

Another lever contorls (open/close) the fresh air flap that is between the hood and windshield.

Your heater core valve may be stuck open, or the cable from the control may be disconnected.  If your car is old enough, there MAY NOT BE an access hole (covered by rubber plug) in the firewall for this valve.

We have a wiki technical manual in progress, here is a link from that regarding heater levers:
http://www.sl113.org/wiki/pmwiki.php?n=Electrical.ReplaceHeaterLeavers

You can also search the forum messages for information using the "Search" link in the top right corner of the screen.  These might be helpful.
http://index.php?topic=6070
http://index.php?topic=2514
http://index.php?topic=3681

If the primary heater slide doesn't move (the one that opens and closes the heater valve --- check the heater valve... most likely culprit or the linkages to it are frozen.

Also see
http://www.sl113.org/forums/index.php?topic=2545.0

In my case I had a sticking heater lever and accessed it from the top through the speaker opening bu removing the wood vent, removing the speaker and then had access to the inner control levers and found that one was broken that was jamming up the lever action rather than a stuck valve.

Good luck
Garry

[wwheeler]

If you need to lube the cables, here is a neat tool that I have used and works well. There are a few like it on the market and are similar. These are mainly used in the motorcycle industry where as you can imagine, there are a lot of cables.

http://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/productDetail.do?webCatId=12&webTypeId=404&navTitle=Handlebars-Control&navType=type&prodFamilyId=8894&stockId=67819

[johnnymack]

thanks to all , garry. I removed wood grill, speaker allready out . Lubed up cable, applied a little force , then got it to work.......now need another project for winter.....many more to pick from. maybe  drivers side window rubbing !