A/C Doors that stick!

Brothers of The Benz,All
My 1987 300E has an A/C that has perform faithfully for 14 years.
Just this past week the compressor gave up the ghost and died.
A new compressor/clutch, drier/receiver and expansion valve and I'm chilling again.
With that all said, I thought I would pass on a little trick I learned about a lazy A/C door.
With the A/C on and the fan switch in Auto, after shutting the engine down and setting for a short time.
Then restarting, the fan would not come on.
With the Benz in motion you can feel cold air from the static air into the interior.
My fix.
Before shutting everything down; place the fan in high mode.
When turning the ignition switch to run position the fan comes on at High speed not waiting for conditionals of the Automatic Climate Control.
That rascal, the fan, just pushes the stuborn door open or closed.
This quirk has been with her for quite some time and as long as I have a jerry rig fix, the dash won't have to be destroyed.
I hope if fellow Benz owners experience anything like this, this may help.
Happy Trails Beep Beep from The Spiderman in Houston!!!

[engatwork]

Donald. Today I went to visit my father in the 300D (80 miles each way) and I disconnected the a/c supply hose to the far right passenger dash vent and rerouted it into the "return" air intake of the a/c system. I was able to get 42 degrees F out of the center vents during the whole trip. Remember - this is a 1985 model that is running 134a. The compressor did cycle a couple of times and I assume it was because of the evaporator temp sensor doing its job. The front seat passenger (oldest son) did not seem to mind not having a vent because the car was quite cool.

Brother of The Benz, engatwork
That's great that you get such amazing results for so little effort.
Wouldn't you get the same reaction by using the interior air recycle function?
This excludes 80-90% of the outside hot air and recools the interior air.
This function is time sensative and you have to turn it on after it times out.
But, I don't think it will be as cool as your method.
Happy Trai;s Beep Beep from The Spiderman In Houston!!!

[engatwork]

interior never really gets "cold" like the inside of a full size Ford truck gets in this mid-Ga heat and I have already performed some "experimental" measures to insure that all I am running through it is interior "recycled" air. The experiment today cooled it the best I have seen so far and this is the first time the evaporator switch has cycled the system You do not know anywhere where I could get an oversized condenser that will fit this car do you?

[RunningTooHot]

Great tip Donald! Twice, I had the system delay you speak of, and I thought that it was potentially the first thing going wrong in my new baby (1984 300D). Of course I immediately assumed the worst, that the control unit was going bad; but I will try your method. I will keep my fingers crossed and tap on the wood veneer for good luck.

Also, you mention that the recirculation function “is time sensitive and you need to turn it on after it times out”. I know that your 124 chassis has a separate recirculation switch, but the 123 does not. Do you by any chance know how to prolong the recirculation mode in a car without the separate switch? Or is my ignorance showing?

Thanks Again!


One of my favorite ‘tag’ lines:

Ignorance is the lack of information; Stupidity is the lack of ability to use information.