Calling all A/C gurus out there

Long story short I’ve been dealing without air conditioning for years and I’ve had enough. When I bought the truck the seller really pushed how well the AC worked even though it was February here in Jersey and the temp would’ve blown cold regardless. This immediately raised flags to me but it was truck I wanted with low miles and clean frame so I bought it regardless. The AC DID work for a while after that and I can’t quite remember exactly when It quit.

so about the AC. Oddly enough when all the planets align, it occasionally works but it’s a rare occasion at best. When it does it blows cold but The last time it worked it switched over to blowing HEAT all on its own. I didn’t touch the controls at all and it was about 3-4 minutes into the ride that it switched. Without scientific measures, it seemed to me that when it switch to heat, the air was actually being heated because it felt significantly hotter than outside ambient air temps. Side note, in the winter when I’m actually using heat it seems as if it’s either all or nothing.the temp control has like a single point where it’s either 100% heat to the right or 0% heat to left. No in between.

I have some funky noises going on that may or may not be related to the HVAC system. One of those noises sounds like baby birds or a squeaky hampster wheel up under my dash either in the middle or on the passenger side. I have a feeling this may be the blower motor but it seems to continue even if the fan control knob is set to off. I also occasionally have a low frequency humming sound that seems to occurs when I’m coming to a stop which I thought may be an RPM thing but if I’m coasting without any accelerator it doesn’t seem to be as bad as when I come to a complete stop on the brakes. It also seems to be affected by playing with HVAC controls. I’m thinking that it might be the belt skipping on my AC compressor clutch but I’m not sure how to check it since it rarely ever works.

any suggestions on where to start on diagnosing this? Im extremely capable when it comes to wrenching but I don’t know much about the AC systems. Any pointers would be great. I’ll include a short video of the low frequency humming noise for reference.

 

Well if somebody could tell me how to post an iphone video so I could post the noise, I would appreciate that. I think the file needs to be converted but I’m not sure how

 

You’ll have to upload to YouTube and then post a link here.


Sorta sounds to me like the heater valve might need some attention, or whatever is controlling it. It’s kind of top center on the firewall

 

Search for "blend door", this forum only.

 

I watched a 20 minute long YouTube video last night of the blendoor removal and testing. I intend on putting some voltage to it and testing it’s function this weekend. I agree that it seems like the switching from cool to heat would have something to do with that but something tells me there’s more to it than that. I don’t know why it would randomly switch on its own.

 

Is YouTube the only/best way of doing it? That’s kinda a pain in the ass.

 

While researching, keep in mind that the earlier years were cable actuated and later years (yours) were electric.

While you t-shoot the electrics, keep the term "intermittent connection" in mind when you fool with connectors, switches etc.

 

Yeah that’s about the easiest, can’t upload videos to tw directly

 

Check the servo motor and blend door actuator
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads...ssible-aftermarket-part.500522/#post-16582776

https://youtu.be/HG5k4zpjuWQ

 

Hvac .

 

https://youtube.com/shorts/AsojZbu2rns?feature=share

please let me know if you can view this. This video contains the low frequency vibration sound I was referring to. Vibration can be heard at the very beginning of the video as well as at 9 seconds in. Not 100% sure it’s related to my AC issues however I venture to believe it is.

 

Your video is set to PRIVATE
Set to PUBLIC so we can see it..

 

Ahhh sh!t I was afraid of that. I thought I set it to anyone who has the link can view it but I guess that didn’t work as planned. Should work now I believe

 

Do you know the parental control password ?

 

Wow… obviously I’m not youtuber. Watch a lot, post none

 

I tried changing the settings but it only asked me if this video is for kids or not. Nothing about a password. I changed the video to full public instead of unlisted so I’m not sure if that will make a difference

 

Either a gear is stripped in the servo for blend door actuator or you're driving over rumble strips in the road.

 

1 thing out of this mess I can 100% confirm is that it’s NOT the rumble strip although that’s a great way of describing the noise.

 

Does the rumble only happen when AC or defrost is on ?
The AC clutch is magnetic engagement and could be making the rumble.

 

Have you checked that there's no dead mice or debris in the blower wheel? Sounds to me like an out of balance blower.