Cavalier vent control question

2004 Cavalier. My vent selector stopped working - air only came out of the dash vents, no defrost, etc. Working from underneath the dash, I found the control cable was kinked, apparently because of a stuck door. At least for now, I was able to free the door, by manually pulling on the cable. So, great. But, in the course of doing that, I broke the post where the cable attaches to the vent control switch. :(

My question is, what is the replaceable part? Do I have to replace the entire "control head" (blower switch, temp selector, vent control, etc), or can just that one broken switch be replaced? (I'd go to a junkyard for the parts.) I can see a couple of screws on the vent switch, but there may be others.

Thanks, George

Reply to
George
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George... JB Weld is your friend. WW

Reply to
WW

My understanding is that JBW is no friend of HDPE, which is what I suspect these parts are.

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(polyethelene) Re PE/PP, as put here,
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"They have very little interest in sticking to anything."

The best luck I've had with HDPE is to 'weld' it with a soldering iron. In this case, the pieces are small enough that I don't think I could do that.

G
Reply to
George

I havent had any luck with soldering gun welds. There is an epoxy that, I believe, will work with materials like HDPE. I used it to repair cracks in a motorcycle mud guard and it worked fine. Regular fiberglass resin wouldnt begin to stick to it. I found this by rumbling through the glues and epoxies at WalMart.. Might be worth a try. Dont remember the name but it specifies on the label that it is for these types of applications.

Reply to
hls

I think any generic epoxy will work if the surface is properly prepared, and that means roughing it up a little bit with some fine sandpaper and then priming it with an oxidizer so the surface is no longer waxy. You may also need to add some reinforcing strips the side of the join if there is going to be any bending stress on it, because the interface between the epoxy and the plastic is always going to be weak.

You'll probably do better with a plastic welder or hot glue.

--scott

Reply to
Scott Dorsey

Scott, on these hard polymers, I have found that no amount of surface preparation really gives a good bond when most "glues" are used. Things like HDPE can be melted and fused, and if you have proper equipment I am sure that would be a reasonably good fix.

"Hot glue", if you mean the meltable sticks of poly(ethylene vinyl acetate) works very well for some things but it too has its limitations.

Just my $3.50 (Used to be $0.02 before the current administration)

Reply to
hls

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