Is the left and right flap supposed to both move? My right flap with the circular holes moves but the flap with the oval holes does not.

Yes both should move.

My 25year old was in town last week and borrowed the car to visit some friends. Went out there last night to get something from the car and noticed foam all over the interior...Oh boy. I thought the next project was going to be the new control arm links I recently purchased. I suppose that can wait.

Dave in TX

..........

probably because of too hot outside, he did full blast the AC fan that made the inner vent foam materials out of the system.

That's OK. Not her fault, and it is indeed HOT!

On the bright side she is 25 and can drive a stick...gotta be happy about that.

Hey all. The 2004 986 I acquired from a family member in Houston this summer has this issue I have started the "through the heater core" repair because it was leaking anyway.
Can someone give me details on how to get the bottom (footwell) door bushing out? I removed the screw and arm that actuates it, but it seems to be too stuck/attached to the door end to just drop off. Is there a clip to undo or maybe I have to pry it? Don't want to break it.

NEVERMIND. I figured it out. Had to leave the "arm" attached to it and use a interior trim prybar to pop it loose.

I have done this this evening. Thanks all for sharing this solving method of a very annoying issue on the boxster. Thanks guys!

no heat fix
 

Originally Posted by 78F350

I did this fix tonight, took about two hours total and have great heat again! I cut the duct and my wife (she has little hands) was able to cover both flaps with aluminum duct tape. This is why I love the forums, If I had taken this to the dealer it would have cost hundreds of $$ but because of the extensive knowledge on this wonderful forum I was able to fix it with zero out of pocket costs, only my time. Thanks everyone.

http://986forum.com/forums/uploads02...1554329972.jpg

http://986forum.com/forums/uploads02...1554330188.jpg

I posted this question in the wrong place....sorry guys

Bits of foam are starting to come out off my vents.
Can I access the vent flaps using this through the dash method on my 05 box 987?
I am by no means a mechanic and hesitate to go through the front trunk.

Thanks

I'm pretty sure that it will work the same. I have not personally seen it in a 987, but someone quoted this method on another forum for Caymans. There won't be any harm in removing your console to take a look. I expect that the HVAC system is the same.

Hi gang!

Regarding this issue, I have a question. I understand it effects the heater side of the system, but does it impact the A/C side in any way? I'm in Florida and will never use the heat, but definitely need the A/C to work properly. It won't be worth fixing for me if the A/C side of the system is not impacted.

Pretty sure it's going to effect both. Hot won't be hot and cold won't be cold. The doors block the other passages off when you switch from one to the other. Swiss cheese let's the air mix.

What Tomikaze said.....


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Reviving this old thread
 

Good morning people.

OK. I've had that foam problem, and was going to cover the flap(s) with aluminum tape (never fail). As I was researching the steps I visited this thread (Bookmarked).

Yesterday, again (and since I purchased the car in 8.17) If it's reasonalby hot outside (100F+) when I run the AC I'll get cold air. However, and it pops up randomly, occasionally it will start blowing cool air... and then tepid. This will last for 5 minutes... then return to cold... then 5-10 minutes... cool and tepid... then cold again. It repeats the cycle until the car is shut off. It seems like a "cycle".

So, this morning and as I was researching the repair process, I find that "... lack of foam affects only the heating function, and not the cooling." Given I run the heater maybe twice a year I'm not so concerned about the heat.

All that said... do the board pros believe that the flap repair will remedy the, when the ac is running, cold/cool/tepid/cold/cool/tepid/ etc cycle? Is there something else at which I should be looking? Is the "... lack of foam affects only the heating function, and not the cooling" statement correct? Thje Tomikaze response leaves me seeking further clarification. Thank you.

Thank you, wise minds.

Meir was incorrect. Missing foam on the heater core flap will allow varying degrees of your cooled AC air to flow over the always hot heater core, making the AC temp vary.

Fixing the heater core flap will solve this.

Thank you, PW. It appears that will be my next project... this "winter".

Cheers!

I did this project yesterday. Mostly because no matter where I directed the air via the buttons it came out all vents almost equally. The front flap had no foam left at all. The rear flap still had most of the holes covered with a super thin layer of brittle foam. So I removed what I could from the rear flap and covered them both with silver foil duct tape.

I plugged the HVAC controller back in to make sure the flaps both worked before I put it all back together, i'm glad I did. The rear flap wasn't working. It must have fallen out of the actuator while I was removing foam or taping it. Well I got it back where it belongs and everything works great.

Now I can get the air to come out of what vents I want and I think the AC blows colder now that it isn't picking up any heat from the core. :cheers:

Nice one, Tommy :cool:

Hi guys...my first post here. '99 Boxster Base with the flake problem. Found this thread and followed the various posts with complete success!! I started the project with trepidation but with all the posts for help, it really went well. Many thanks to all who contributed to this thread!

Oh, so this is why my heat is luke warm and I get blasted with foam from the vents. Haha.

Couple questions about the center console method:

Does the section of vent I need to cut get removed completely or are we just cutting enough to fold it down out of the way?

Do you have to 'repair' the cut vent somehow once your done?


I'm sure it will be clear what to cut once I get the console off. But any additional info would be great.

Thanks guys!!

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Here's the original instructions from earlier in the thread. Cut and Fold down. Tape back together afterward, or plastic weld if you don't like tape. I used the blue tape just because it was heavy duty tape that I had on hand. You can find better products. Next one I do, I'll use metal flue tape on the vent doors and black "Gorilla Tape" to put the duct back together.

That makes sense. Sounds pretty simple.

Some how I missed the most important post. Lol. Guess I needed more coffee this morning. [emoji3]

Thanks!!

I got one door taped up yesterday before running out of time. Going to tackle the second half next weekend. My doors had zero foam left on them just like others in the thread. I think my lungs filtered most of it out over the last year. Haha.

Pretty straightforward repair. A pair of small hands is very helpful. I used a razor to cut the duct and the same aluminum tape i used on the door to repair it.

I also cleaned up the previous owners shotty radio/lidar jammer wiring. Talk about a birds nest. Haha.

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I did this repair while putting in my double din stereo while I had the dash open. None of the doors had any foam left. Wish my hands were smaller for the ones way back in there! Works great!! Would have never tried to tackle it with out these detailed instructions!!

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...988ddce9ba.jpg


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What a difference having fully functional heat makes, right! Not sure why I waited so long to tackle it. Haha

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I could not believe how much hotter, and faster it heated up!!


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I'm bringing this up to the top as I've started getting foam out the vents this year on my 2003. I haven't been hit in the face with it yet but it's starting to make a mess on the dash and the floor.

After reviewing Meir's full disassembly method and 78F350's center console method, I am going to opt for 78F350's.

My questions are about the use of solid tape instead of foam. Has anyone who used tape noticed any adverse affects? Someone in an earlier post said they thought the original use of foam may have been for sound attenuation. No one has mentioned that their heat or a/c is noisier now. Also, it seems like the original foam would have let some small amount of air to continue to pass through the doors when they are closed and the tape won't. I'm planning to use the aluminum tape but would be curious to hear if anyone has anything to add before I take this project on soon.

As loud as the Boxsters are, I cannot imagine foam deep in the ventilation system making any noticeable difference in noise levels.

I have not noticed any negative effects. It has only been a year, but the 3m tape I used has been great. I did not notice a sound difference but to be honest the top is down on mine 95% of the time I am driving it, the AC / heat is off and the fabspeed is on full blast :)

In all seriousness though from the little bit i did use the blower before i did it I noticed no difference. But it was one of the first repairs I did (3 months or so after buying) so take my opinion with that reference point.

Thanks, like everything else, I'm probably overthinking it!

I used this 5 years ago. No debris and no problems.https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...e53dedea4c.jpg


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So you went with foam and it's holding up! Looks like you did the Meir method! Kudos to you!

Seems to be, yes. Better be, as we’re going for a ride north tomorrow and it’ll only be around 40 in the morning and we’ll need some heat.

Actually, the Meir method was too daunting for me, although he was generous with his advice. I went in through the heater core. The only scary part was dremeling off that little round bit on the upper left to get the door out. More work taking things apart than it was actually fixing it.https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...a081285556.jpg


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I basically used regular old duct tape. Worked fine. 3 years later no issues. Can’t hear any difference. One of the more satisfying DIY’s I performed on the car. The blowing foam is annoying. Could finally vacuum the car out and not be afraid to turn on the HVAC afterwards.

Thanks! This Thursday is a road trip to VIR for a 3 day HPDE, so I'm not going to try this until some time after I return. My car has the newer style cupholders below the vent. It broke several years ago and I replaced it, which required disassembling the entire center stack, so I am/or was, at least familiar with that part.

Just did this over the weekend as part of double DIN update. Amazed that 100% of the foam and adhesive was completely gone.

http://986forum.com/forums/uploads02...1618240396.jpg

Finally got around to doing mine today, easy job, thanks for the writeup.

Here’s a video showing how to repair both blend doors using plastic plugs from seller DSP on eBay. It turns out many VWs from the same era have the same problem. When researching that VW problem, I noticed that the blend doors are almost identical, and the plastic plugs work actoss both.

This method goes through the center dash vent behind the radio, similar to other repair methods.

https://youtu.be/ZiFFllCzlxc

The plugs are overkill. $40+ for something you're not going to see... and $00.25 worth of tape achieves the same end result. :cool: