Broken recirculation door pull fitting

[The Dark Side of Will]

When I was recently getting my A/C running again, I found this:




The pull/push rod from the recir door motor broke off its attachment to the recirc door. This means that my right recirc door is stuck open (closed? I don't know).

How do I fix this, and is the part available?
Can I pull the blower motor cover and get to it from the engine bay side?
Do I have to pull the entire dash to be able to glue it or swap out the part?
I can't see where it used to attach.

[jeffnhiscars]

You can get to the flaps by removing t he blower. The problem is that the white plastic clips that hold the flaps in place are very brittle and I don't know if you can buy them. Look for pics of an hvac unit to see how it all fits together.

[vpilarrt]

I have a complete HVAC unit I removed from my track car. When you find out what parts you need let me know. I'm sure we can work out a deal.

[nando]

I glued mine back together. seems to be working fine. it looked like way too much of a pain to remove & replace. Use a quality epoxy meant for plastics and I think it should hold up for a while.

[The Dark Side of Will]

I can't see where the part goes back on... much less get my hands to it. I'll pop the blower motor cover off and see what I can see on that side this weekend.

[The Dark Side of Will]

I have a complete HVAC unit I removed from my track car. When you find out what parts you need let me know. I'm sure we can work out a deal.

I'm in NoVA... wouldn't be hard to come by the C-Ville area and take a look at it. I have no idea how things on top of the unit look. If I can't fix or don't trust the fix on the door, I may snag some or all of it from you.

[vpilarrt]

My son goes to GMU and lives near there. He'll be here this weekend, I can have him bring the HVAC back with him if you want.

[The Dark Side of Will]

Cool. We can work something out for next week.
How much? PM me if you'd rather.

[vpilarrt]

Did you want to buy the whole unit or just whatever parts you need?

[The Dark Side of Will]

I was thinking of the whole thing.

[vpilarrt]

It's complete less the heater core, AC evaporator, blower fan, blower resistor pack and #7 (passenger side) here: http://bmwfans.info/parts-catalog/E3...of_instrument/

[The Dark Side of Will]

Wow! Sorry I didn't reply sooner. I didn't get a reply notification.

I glued the recirc door back together with epoxy, but I'll be in touch if it breaks again.

Pics:
First attempt at gluing. I wetted the broken surfaces with 5 min epoxy and kept the parts squeezed fairly hard while it set. However, the glue did not completely fill the cracks and I did not have fillet or overlap.



Back side after first gluing:


Second application, full filleting at the joints and overlap on the crack up the spine.


How the pushrod is disengaged


Push rod end fitting manufacturer



Doors open


Doors Closed


As I was reassembling everything, I discovered that the plastic molded around the brass inserts in the door slider structural piece that screws to the back of the face plate had cracked around the inserts... so I tried more epoxy



The two in this photo had actually pulled out. I didn't think to slather epoxy all over them before I pushed them back in though

[Poorboyz]

I'm sort of in the same boat except I removed my whole HVAC box and I'm rebuilding it completely.

[The Dark Side of Will]

I'd *like* to... it's really dirty inside. Should there be any kind of air filter on the cowl inlets?

Also, the foam seals on the recirc doors had completely disintegrated and the evaporator is at least 25% clogged.

Now that I've had it apart far enough to know all that, I'll probably pull it all the way out to rehab it when I'm doing the engine swap.

[nando]

E30s didn't come with a filter like newer BMWs. There was a version that had it, but it was only non-AC cars IIRC. and you'd have to buy a whole new HVAC unit to use it.