VE SS Recirculation Door replacement

[Foz]

Just thought I'd do my part for humanity today.

The dreaded recirculation door replacement...

I recently had my recirc door break and the air con was stuck on full heat. I diagnosed some faulty actuators and replaced them which left me with the remaining broken recirc door. After pulling the dash apart and taking the blower fan out I couldn't for the life of me see how to get it out. I was quoted $5k from an auto sparky, saying it's full dash removal to fix it. Politely told them no. My usual mechanic declined the job also saying it's a dash out job to fix.

Contacted my local dealer that still services Holden's and they said they can do it if I supply parts because they can't get them anymore. I got the recirc door off eBay and a spare actuator.

Took it to the service tech and he said they go through the plenum and the recirc door is behind the pollen filter. There is a trick to getting them in/out.

There are 2 small tabs you can cut off if needed, and heat is your friend. They lightly heat the recirc door to bend it and get it in to place. In my case the spare part had been sitting on the front seat in the sun so it was warm enough to make it soften it up.

Reason I'm posting this is it seems to be a common issue and people are getting ripped off by repairers charging to do the job in an overly complicated way.

All up it cost me an hours labour ($150) plus parts ($80).

Good luck. Enjoy your now working AC.

 

[Fu Manchu]

I knew there would be a trick to it!
Holden were replacing these a lot back in the day and there was no way they were pulling the dash out everytime. In the mid to late 2000’s people had posted here on the forum about it.

It has been posted that Holden did it in an hour or so but no one ever posted how they did it.

Recently there’s a thread on doing this repair by removing part of the HVAC without removing the dash.
However there wasn’t an outcome on it (?).

Thanks for posting this. More helpful info for Holden tragics to make things fixable.


of note: those prices quoted are usually around $2500-$3000. $5k is the highest I’ve heard of but having done this myself, it’s understandable.

Most cars require the whole dash out for HVAC repairs/servicing and the VE is one of the better ones when compared to other manufacturers.

Stoked you posted this.

 

[adios57]

Thanks for this! If the actuator that drives the recirculating door is suss then the partial removal of the HVAC casing on the passenger side as previously described is the only way to change the actuator and the recirculating door. My actuator was not working and the outer door drive end was damaged.
The door itself is reversable providing both ends of the door drive ends are not destroyed. One of mine was ok but you don't know until it is out.
If I have to change mine again I will definitely use this method. Hopefully it won't happen again.

 

[skiman57]

Just thought I'd do my part for humanity today.

The dreaded recirculation door replacement...

I recently had my recirc door break and the air con was stuck on full heat. I diagnosed some faulty actuators and replaced them which left me with the remaining broken recirc door. After pulling the dash apart and taking the blower fan out I couldn't for the life of me see how to get it out. I was quoted $5k from an auto sparky, saying it's full dash removal to fix it. Politely told them no. My usual mechanic declined the job also saying it's a dash out job to fix.

Contacted my local dealer that still services Holden's and they said they can do it if I supply parts because they can't get them anymore. I got the recirc door off eBay and a spare actuator.

Took it to the service tech and he said they go through the plenum and the recirc door is behind the pollen filter. There is a trick to getting them in/out.

There are 2 small tabs you can cut off if needed, and heat is your friend. They lightly heat the recirc door to bend it and get it in to place. In my case the spare part had been sitting on the front seat in the sun so it was warm enough to make it soften it up.

Reason I'm posting this is it seems to be a common issue and people are getting ripped off by repairers charging to do the job in an overly complicated way.

All up it cost me an hours labour ($150) plus parts ($80).

Good luck. Enjoy your now working AC.

I am in the same situation with my VE II 2011 wagon! I have both bottom sides of the dash out, and can see the amount of work required to get the recirc door/ HVAC blower assembly out from under dash and reinstall. Could you PM me the details of the service tech so I can take the job to him? Kind regards.

 

[Fu Manchu]

The guide:
https://www.autoinstruct.com.au/man...dore/replacing-air-conditioner-actuator-hvac/

 

[skiman57]

The guide:
https://www.autoinstruct.com.au/man...dore/replacing-air-conditioner-actuator-hvac/

Thanks, I have downloaded and read this before. But it only deals with the 4 actuators, not the recirculation door (or the flapper door) that the dealer hand-wrote as the faulty part after the system scan.. This is at the top rear of the HVAC fan blower assembly and a very hard to get to, requirng removal of whole unit, according the factory manual.

 

[Fu Manchu]

The recirc door is removed by heating the door and flexing it out. The new one is also heated just enough to get flex in it and installed.

Many years ago Holden was replacing a lot of them and they were doing the job quite quickly. We recently learned that’s how Holden themselves do it.

 

[J_D 2.0]

I did it by removing the fan plenum, which doesn’t require removal of the dash. Here is a video that goes down to removing the AC core, which is one step after removing the fan plenum. My tip is to clean the AC core while you’re there if you do remove the fan plenum.