The blend door problem

 "We cannot choose our external circumstances, but we can always choose how we respond to them." - Epictetus

The wife's car has an issue right now that I can't fix.  The passenger side floor and dash vent only deliver cold air.  Before I got into it, you would hear some clicking as the temperature was being adjusted on the passenger side.  I'm pretty sure this clicking noise was the nylon gear teeth skipping across each other in the blend door motor.

I bought a new motor (not made by Dorman) to replace the one that was skipping gear teeth.  

The project required removing the glove box.

Below:  The motor is off to the right side of the box in the center, with a couple of wires attached.

It was a bit tricky to get the screws out.

I opened up the old one to see what had gone wrong.  The big black gear on the right had a bit of slop and wobble where it fit into the housing.  Maybe the plastic bearings had worn out a bit, and it was skipping where it engaged the white gear.

The new replacement is not skipping, but neither are we getting warm air.  The damper seems to go from cold to lukewarm air.  I suspect that the car's computer needs to be programmed to set the open and closed limit points, and that will take a special tool that I don't have.  The tool costs about $400, and I'm not buying one to finish this job.  Instead I'll take it to our mechanic.