mavrik2747

Man that sucks, only took me about an hour and half last night. The part that took the longest was just trying to get my hand in the vent door to grab the foam!

Mod (Ret.)

What comes to mind for grabbing the stuck foam is one of those goofy toys my kid used to have where you'd squeeze a handle, and the mouth at the end of the stick would open/close. Maybe there is a more "industrial" type tool for grabbing in tight spots like this:

mavrik2747

I had to use a combination of my hand/fingers, long reach needle nose pliers and a flat blade screw driver to scrape pieces off. The foam adhesive was adhered so well I had to take it out in pieces. Have the pliers helped a lot, but the screw driver did most of the dirty work.

09SuperCrewLariat

Will be tackling this job this weekend. Went out this morning to warm the wife's truck up just to find I had no defrost or floor mode, vent only. The truck is an 09 SCab XLT with manual controls and I suspect this is the problem as I have had no issues until now, or at least that's what she says...lol . I will check the door operation with the actuator removed to be sure.


Thanks again for the awesome write up. Will post some pics of the 09 dash if I end up having to take it apart, but I am sure its very similar.

09SuperCrewLariat

Well, I got around to attempting this on the 09 XLT today. First pulled the actuator to check it. It worked. Checked the door for movement, stuck tight. The door or the linkage is stuck. Checked the linkage and bracket everything looks ok, the door is just stuck. Started out with lots of optimism as a lot of the dash looked very similar to the older model.


Sadly, I could not get this to work on the 09. It is VERY similar, but the metal bracing behind the stereo is different and leaves no wiggle room to get the cover out. Here are the differences that I noticed on her 09 XLT.


1. Where you had the white plastic clips, the 09 has screws. To get the right side one out, you have to remove the door actuator on top the case which requires removing the glove box. That back screw is a bastard.


2. To get to the two screws that secure the vent tubes, you have to remove the tray on top of the dash. The screws that hold it in are under the rubber liner in the bottom, it just lifts out. You can then remove the four screws that hold the display for the radio and cd changer and take it out of the way. The screws for the vent tubes are easy to access now.


3. The cover itself looks a little different but is roughly the same size. After removing the four screws it will rotate a little and slide down a little.


But, this is the one that made an hours worth of work pointless.


4. The 09 has a long metal tab that the back of the radio goes in to that hangs down around 10 inches off the bottom of the round metal tube in the dash, where the older ones have nothing. You can bend it out the way some, but not enough. There is also some additional metal bracing on the left side that won't let the cover rotate enough to come out. I pried, twisted, jerked, stood on my head, even made up some new curse words, but I could not get that cover to rotate in any position to even come close to getting it to come out. Couldn't even move it enough to get my hand down in the box to feel for anything.


Looks like I will be pulling the entire dash next weekend, but pressed for time, I put it back together for now.

2008__XL

Dirttracker,

I know his is two years old and not sure if you're still here, but do you know the size of those push pins / plugs you got or a part number? I want to pick some up before doing this.

Thanks!

Dirttracker18

No I don't have a part number.

Screen shot the picture and go to your favorite parts store and ask them

2006 f-150 fx4

Hello, great post, I did this and found the foam off on both sides . I put back together an it worked but a few but then started back out vents & defrost. I changed both actuators too. Do you think my vent to defrost selector could be bad?? Thx need sum input..

mavrik2747

Did you see if any of the foam was down in the vent and remove it? Mine had several pieces that were not easy to see or to reach.

2008__XL

I just did mine yesterday. I'd open it back up and have another look to see if any foam or pieces of foam were left bihind.

The piece of foam I removed looked very similar to the OP's pic. It wasn't from the two doors as they still had their foam. I'm not sure if there is also foam on the back side of the doors. Maybe that's where it came from.

Since one side is sticky, where ever it decides to lodge itself, it stays there.

The only thing different I had to do was to cut an access hole in the front of the hvac cover. I removed the two white plastic pins holding it in place, but I just couldn't wiggle it out.

Either way, I only had panel vents and now they all work.