Chrysler Repair: town and country rear ac, rear quarter panel, screw driver

Question
'98 town and country... rear ac is only blowing outside air temperature even if ac is on. pls help

Answer
Hi Mills,
The rear ac unit operates in a similar manner to the front air distribution unit under the dash. I would suspect that the refrigerant is being circulated to the rear unit (you could sense that via the high pressure tubing being hot going to the unit and cooler on the return line) and more likely the electrically operated "mode" motor that moves a door inside the rear unit that directs the flow of air either to the heater core or the refrigerant core (or a mix of the two streams) is not responding to commands from the control unit at the front dash. It is called the mode door motor and its two wires are blue and either dark blue/white or yellow/light blue and connect to the control unit at the front. It could either be that there is a break in one of those two wires or the mode door motor has failed, or the mode door itself is binding so that the motor can't move it. Only be opening up the rear quarter panel where the unit is located could one determine which is the reason.
That panel is held in place by several screw hidden by caps that you can lift away with the tip of a screw driver, as well as clips that are released by raising the panel upward once the screws have been removed. I don't have a detailed picture of the rear unit, but usually there is a plenum through which the blower motor's air is directed, and in that plenum is a hidden door with an external shaft to which the mode door motor is attached. So look for those colored wires to get you to the motor for inspection of it and the door itself.
Roland