Blend Door Actuator, 1997 Ranger

If your blend door actuator is bad, there's no need to spend money on a new one; here's a cheap and easy way to once again be able to set cold or hot on your A/C without buying a blend door actuator:

My A/C was stuck on hot, and so I needed to replace the blend door actuator on my 97 Ranger. I got the old one off, and I bought a new one - an exact match. However, try as I could, I could not get the new one to snap down. I never could get the actuator rod to go down into the hole on the blend door.

I then thought, why don't I get a long screw driver bit, put it in the hole, and then turn the bit to either open or close the door. Then run the A/C for a few minutes to see which way I turned it (cold or hot). Finally, plug in the new actuator, and adjust the temp control to match how the door is. I figured it would line up and snap right into the hole after doing that. But even after doing all that, I couldn't get the new actuator to go into the hole on the blend door.

I then thought, Forget the actuator; I'll just leave the screw driver bit in the hole, and turn it as needed. All I need is a 1/4" socket and a small ratchet in my glove box to use any time I need to adjust the temp.

See attached picture for the screw driver bit you need for this.

A much better solution would have been for Ford to put a cable rather than a motor on the blend door, and hook the cable to the temperature control. Not sure what possessed Ford to put a motor on the blend door instead of a cable.

Update: The blend door moves freely; it won't stay in place after I move it to the desired position. I need to come up with a way to hold it in place while the A/C is running and while the car is moving down the road.

Final update. I remembered that the A/C would move to hot once I started driving, so I manually moved the blend door to hot. I then plugged in the actuator and moved the temp control all the way to hot. I then tried to install the actuator. It went right in the hole! Once I got the actuator to go into the hole on the blend door, it was simple to snap it down. The A/C temperature control now works perfectly for hot and cold.