name for heater part

[gordo999]

I have a part missing in my heater venting system on a 2001 Safari Cargo van. When you pull the console to get at the doghouse, there's a vent unit sitting on the face of the doghouse that attaches on top to an oval vent from the blower and a round hose on the driver side that seems to feed the instrument panel vents. On the bottom, it vents heater air onto the floor and it has two flanges with holes in them that fit over pins sticking out of the floor. Then the console bolts over top of it.

I don't know what it's called and although I have tried 'thingamajig' and 'whatchamacallit' at the auto wreckers, they don't seem to get what I'm talking about.

Don't ask why it's not there, it was there till recently and I appear to have misplaced it during doghouse removal and forgotten to replace it. I searched high and low through the van and in the house and it's not there. I fear I left it out of town while doing repairs at a friend's place and I haven't been able to raise them.

Anyone by any chance have a name, or a photo showing the heater/blower vent system? Would be much appreciated.

Please note that the Astro passenger van seems to have a different unit. I don't know if there's any such animal as an Astro cargo van. Saw one today at the wrecker but it has a broad vent at the base that seems to go under the rugs. The cargo van does not have rugs or a vent going along the floor. The heat outlet is narrow, about 3" or so.

[sadglad]

You can find parts diagrams online at the parts departments of local dealerships and other GM parts places.
Is your missing part one of these?

Astros and Safaris all came of the same assembly line. I've never seen any differences between them other than lights and grill on the front.

[gavio]

FWIW, the factory service manual refers to it as the "floor air outlet duct".... Any gen 2 cargo van should have that same part in it, but IIRC earlier models have something different about the small duct running over toward the instrument panel... Passenger vans use a different one that connects to ducts under the seats...

Good luck...

[redfury]

If I had kept my old one I'd send it to you...I found the newer style that ran an additional heater outlet to the drivers knees, so I picked that and installed it and the vent in my van. Likely all you need to do is find a yard that has a passenger van from 1995 up and it should have what you need ( I believe 95 would be the first year to use the new dog house.)

[gordo999]

Is your missing part one of these?

Thanks for diagram. It looks like part #22 but the Safari cargo van has another outlet at the top. Note that 22 is fed from top right by an oval vent. That's the same but right across from it on the left top the cargo van has a round outlet which attaches to a round hose coming from the instrument panel area. Also, the bottom end isn't as wide.

Part 19 is a floor vent which goes under the carpet on an Astro passenger van. The cargo van does not have that, the vent ends at the floor just under the console (where the glove box is found).

Part 14 is the defrost feed on the dash by the front window. That's different as well. The Safari cargo van (2001) has two feeds to the defroster fed by another feed from part 16. The three feeds sit vertically above each other.

Part 16 sits on the heater/defroster compartment (might be parts 7 and 8) in a vee shape. Getting the three vents out of the heater/defroster chamber back in is seriously hard. I ended up splitting the vee into two parts and taping them together once bolted in. I did not want to mess with the air bag compartment. I've seen them blow and it's like a shotgun. The charge blows the bags right through the plastic cover.

I know that's hacking but the only other way I could see to fit it easily was to pull the entire dash apart. I did get it out without doing that but no matter how hard I tried to visualize it, the unit would not go back in.

[gordo999]

FWIW, the factory service manual refers to it as the "floor air outlet duct".... Any gen 2 cargo van should have that same part in it, but IIRC earlier models have something different about the small duct running over toward the instrument panel... Passenger vans use a different one that connects to ducts under the seats...Good luck...

Thanks for that. I noted on the diagram in reply #1 that it is for a passenger van. As you say, it has ducts running under the carpet and the seats which the cargo van does not have.

[gordo999]

If I had kept my old one I'd send it to you...I found the newer style that ran an additional heater outlet to the drivers knees, so I picked that and installed it and the vent in my van. Likely all you need to do is find a yard that has a passenger van from 1995 up and it should have what you need ( I believe 95 would be the first year to use the new dog house.)

Thanks for reply.

I'll keep an eye out for the kind you mentioned with the heater outlet to the driver's knees. There's a large auto wreckers about 50 miles from where I live. The passenger van doesn't seem to do it since the lower vent is wide and connects to an under-carpet floor vent. I may need to find a cargo van.

[gordo999]

redfury's reply reminded me of something. Does anyone notice if air comes out of the passenger side continuously under the dash on a gen 2 when the blower is on? That's where the heater/defrost chamber is located on my Safari and it has factory slots cut in the chamber that direct air downward toward the floor. The defrost control door is just above the slots but air comes out of there pretty good whether it's in defrost mode or not.

I am wondering if I have a leak in mine, possibly due to a bad fit in the connection between the heater/defrost chamber and the heater core compartment.

I am calling it a heater/defrost chamber because there is a control door in the chamber for defrost and another door for mode control. The defrost door diverts heat to the defrost vent or the heater vent, or both in a bilevel situation. The mode door diverts air to the other dash vents like those by the instrument cluster. It's not really a heater door.

There is a third door that does affect heat only. The blower fan blows air toward the heater core, and that door, actuated by an electrically-controlled actuator diverts blower air past the heater core or directly into the heater/defrost chamber, depending on where the heat level control is set.

[gordo999]

Found my part. Left it out of town.

Meantime I have been trading emails with a local GM dealer. The second post in this thread from sadglad has a diagram with it. This drawing may be slightly different.

Part #22 has two version of the part, for a YF7 model and an EXC YF7 model. Neither is the correct drawing for my Safari cargo van and GM can't find the right one, Furthermore, they inform me the part is obsolete, whatever it is.

The YF7 connects at it's lower end to a floor vent (#19), which is shown. The EXC YF7 terminates at floor level just below the console and blows air onto the floor.

There is obviously another model besides the YF7 and EXC YF7. My van is an extended cargo van and it doesn't seem to be listed.

Part 16 on sadglad's drawing is a cover on the heater/defroster chamber where the blower air is diverted to defrost, heat, or both. On his drawing, there are only 2 ports. Mine has three, 2 round and 1 oval-shaped, with two versions of part 14 connecting to the 2 round ones.

The third port, which is oval, connects to the part I lost (#22 on drawing). Mine is close to the EXC YF7 but it has another port on the top left opposite where the oval port is located on the top right. That port is round and about 2" in diameter. It connects to a black corrugated hose which runs behind the instrument panel.