Object in defroster vent, jamming temperature blend door

drakeo0

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 29, 2007
Location
cambridge, ma
TDI
golf 99.5
EDIT: Solved, see below

Hello, I've looked all over google and these forums to find a solution to my problem, but it's not there.

MK4 2000 golf

Mostly everyone has trouble with the knob cable detaching from the temperature blend door lever, but my problems a bit different (although it did happen to one other poor guy). My cousin was fooling around with the defroster vent grill on the dash, broke it off, and dropped it deep into the ventilation system behind the dash.

Now I can't engage the heat via the temperature knob. I have the glovebox and all plastic covers on drivers and passengers side off, but I'm not sure if theres any way for me to get into the actual ventilation pipes to extract this thing. (I've tried with a hanger down the defroster port).

I can't find any diagrams of the ventilation past the heater core in the manual, either. Any ideas, diagrams, photos would be greatly appreciated.

Andrew
 
Last edited:

drakeo0

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 29, 2007
Location
cambridge, ma
TDI
golf 99.5
Solved

After a little more tweaking (and no forum ideas), I was able to fix this. Here are my steps for anyone else who suffers from 'thing down the defroster vent' syndrome.

First, heres a diagram from the bentley. I made a mistake and made labels that already exist, but: red 1 is the vent that the vent grill dropped into. red 2 is the part that you will remove to finagle your hand inside the air box back there.



Now, take out the center console, and drivers side steering column cover. I do not cover this, but it is easy and googleable. Once done, you'll see part "red 2" indicated by arrow 1. arrow 2 shows a rubber connecting piece that you can slide away from its junction there. Pull down on the part indicated by arrow 1 in this image, and it will dislocate from above. Don't worry, there arent tabs to break.



Heres how it looks removed:



Once removed, look at the port heading towards the engine compartment that is now exposed. Adjust the air flow direction knob such that the door is open (All the way towards feet), and reach in with a skinny hand as indicated by the arrow:



This is my culprit. yeesh

 

Traffico

New member
Joined
Oct 16, 2015
Location
East coast
TDI
None
You're the man. Thank you very much for posting this. The car was packed up and I was about to leave town when I tossed the key into the vent. Somehow this hadn't happened yet in years of the grill being missing from the windshield air vent.

The key was sitting on top of the directional valve just behind the bottom manifold. Took a half hour to get it. Again thanks so much
 
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