I was driving from work earlier this week and my blower motor started making a god awful noise. It's been making the usual whine when cold for the last year, so I figured I was on borrowed time. Picked up a new one and went to swap it out this morning. As I removed the old one, this piece was sitting right in the middle of the impeller:







Some background... A few months ago, I lost A/C on the passenger side. Typical blend door actuator issue, so I replaced that last summer and everything now works as it should. The splines on the piece I just found look awfully similar to the ones I remember seeing on the blend door actuator. I'm thinking that maybe this piece was connected to the blend door actuator, which is why I was having those issues last summer? But it doesn't make sense that replacing the actuator solved those problems, when obviously this was broken off and finally made its way into the blower a few days ago. I haven't had time to test all of the auto climate control temperatures yet, but everything seems to be working after a short drive. Any thoughts? Do I need to open up the dash and take a look at the actual blend door to see if there is a piece missing?

 

Reddit was quick to answer me. This is indeed broken off of the blend door. Looks like I'm going back in.

 

If you can direct the hot and cold air as designed, I would guess that's off your old one. Also make sure the fresh air vent is working.

 

Unless you missed that piece from the first time around and it finally made its way out, I'd say yes after confirming that something wasn't working or sounding right.

 

Did a little more testing and it sounds like its the recirc door like you eluded to.

 

It would only be the recirc door, not a temp door, that could have this piece broken sitting in the blower. You are not the first. I think the biggest thread about this here had a title about 'vibration in dash', something like that.

 

Look at my post a few days ago regarding my recir. flap problem. That's probably the gears on the flap that broke off.

https://www.f150forum.com/f38/2011-f...riving-538573/

 

Yep... Thats the socket to your fresh air/recirc flap.

Most likely your truck is stuck in the fresh air mode. With will mean it won't blow as cold in the summer and won't get as hot in the winter.
I personally ended up moving it to the recirculation mode and drove a screw through the housing and into the flap to lock it into place. I haven't noticed any side effects.

The proper fix is to remove the whole dash and replace that portion of the air box.

 

my flap was stuck somewhere in the middle I think. I was getting a constant draft of hot air when the system was off and lacking a strong air flow in ac recycle mode. I am glad it's fixed now and saved over 1000 dollars by not taking the dash out.

 

Those were breaking since the mid-90s on Explorers. There were aftermarket blend doors so you don't have to spend a fortune on a whole box.