OK, this one has whipped me and I'm finally going to throw in the towel and ask. I'm trying to get the heater controller out of my FB (the non-logicon version...with the slider). I've searched and managed to find out how to get the center console surround out. Once the center console surround was out, I was able to remove the radio.

Now I'm trying to remove the climate control. There are two screws that hold it into place. No problem there. It starts to move out, but it's being held in tight by the wiring harness it's attached to. I removed the clock so I could see back there better. I can see a black plug that needs to be undone (somehow...even with my small hands it's going to be a fight). But from what I can see, there's something else holding it in back there and I don't want to break anything.

I'm thinking it might be easier to see what's going on if I could take out the vent on top of the climate control, but I'm not seeing an easy way to get that out either. Has anyone tried to get the heater control unit out and been successful in doing so without breaking anything?

The whole reason I'm doing this is to replace the burned out bulbs in it.

One other related question: I noticed that the fan and heat adjust **** bulbs are flakey...the work sometimes, but if I hit a bump, they go out. Once I got the bezel off, I had access to these bulbs. I turn on the lights and they don't come on. I tap the bulb and then they do. I pulled the bulbs, checked the two wires that are on either side and they seem OK. Put them back in. They work, but I tap them and they go out. I'm wondering if the sockets are bad?

fm

 

how did u remove it?

 

Japanese Nostalgic Car ran a contest several years ago asking for submissions from people who attempted a repair that they thought would be easy but found out the hard way it was not. I won some JNC stickers for this post...here's your answer:

My very first attempt at fixing something on the FB was, what I thought, going to be a fairly easy fix. A light. A very small light in a very small heater control unit, which had decided many years ago that it had had enough and quit lighting up the words "Vent", "Def", Heat"…etc. It was such a little thing. I almost considered not even messing with it. But after a few evenings of being in the car, it really started to bug me. "OK, I guess I'll replace that bulb…it'll a nice, easy, first thing I can do with this car."

A car which was alien to me and had some problems…a flooding carburetor, a sloppy steering box, and rattles from god knows where. But this should be easy. A fine way to ease into getting to know the car. This was in November…shortly after I'd gotten the car.

So I went to work disassembling the center console. Unlike my Civic, there were virtually NO visible screws. Everything was cleanly hidden from view by snapped on facia, all of which had to come off in a certain order. It took 3 trips to rx7club.com and a fair amount of searching before I got to the point where I had the center console apart and access to pull the heater panel. A heater panel that did *not* want to come out. It was attached in the back by a molex plug and some round plug. There was no possible way for my hand to get in there and successfully coax the plugs apart. Several scans of the parts manual refused to give up the secrets that kept that heater control firmly affixed to the center dash. To add insult to injury, it offered no real reassurance that the bulbs were, in fact, replaceable. A call to Mazda in Seaside did nothing to reassure me either…the parts guy couldn't even read the parts manual they had…which was the same crappy scan of a microfiche from '85 that I was reading. He had no clue and, from the sound of it, didn't want a clue.

Questions were posted to rx7club.com, which were met with resounding silence. Nobody knew. It was an '84-85 thing. Probably nobody had tried. Or nobody cared. Or both.

I left the console out, looking rather untidy with the resolve that the console would NOT go back in until I had replaced that bulb.

Fast forward to this evening…8 months later. I went in the garage with the resolution that I would do one of two things. Pull that heater out and see if the bulb is replaceable, or throw in the towel and put everything back together. I was tired of the car looking like a theft recovery. It's a #*$&@ lightbulb for #*@!'s sake! I probably won't even drive this thing in the dark more than a couple of times a year.

Armed with my LED light wand and reading glasses, I looked at the heater from every angle I could. I could see the two plugs. I could get one hand kinda up in there, but I just didn't have the leverage to pull the molex apart with one hand, I noted, however, I was able to pull the heater control out just a little bit. Enough to expose 3 screws on the top of the front panel. I wasn't sure exactly where the light bulb would be, but I suspected it would be behind the panel there somewhere, so I got a stubby phillips. I couldn't get it in the screws…the heater wouldn't' come out far enough to clear the dash so I could get access to those screws. Then I remembered.

I dug around in my tool box and found a little chintzy, "Made in China" right angle screw driver ratchet thingy that saved the day.
I was able to get that thing in there with room to spare. Ratcheted out 3 screws and popped the top panel off and what do I see? An light bulb with an orange rubber condom on it. It's attached with a little twist-lock thing which I had very little access to, not being able to get the whole control unit out of the dash. But a pair of needle nose pliers managed to twist the bulb enough to coax it out of its home. Here it is…my Moby Dick:


It pulled out easily from its home…a neo-wedge bulb. Now I was excited, as I knew I had some bulbs left over from speedo clusters I'd disassembled from various Civics. I pulled out my box of bolts, nuts, bulbs, fuses, and other weird car fasteners and had a look. DRAT…this one is smaller than all of the cluster bulbs I had. Oh well. IIRC I was able to find one of them online.

It's such a stupid little thing, but it had been ******* me for so long, I felt even better than when I'd finally swapped the rear end and got the coilovers on. Logical, no. But damn, I felt great after getting this job done.

So, the cliffs notes:
Don't try to get the whole heater unit out. Just pull on it just enough to get a right angle ratching screwdriver in there, take out the 3 screws, and you'll expose the bulb. Use a pair of needle-nose pliers to pull the wedge bulb out and Bob's your uncle.

tm