Vacuum actuator rod is catching on bracket

[jackb]

When I turn on the A/C and the vacuum actuator engages pulling the rod in to adjust the flapper door, the rod catches on it's bracket.

Shortly after buying it, the rod end snapped, I epoxied it, and carried on.

I didn't even realized what the sound was- I thought the snapping sound was the flapper door; not the rod breaking free of where it was hanging up on the bracket.

What is the best thing to do to prevent the rod from catching on the bracket? Should I take it apart and file the hole open to make more clearance? My concerns with that are: 1) if I screw it up, replacing the bracket will be a bigger problem; and 2) the rod will just continue to get drawn in off center.

I can push the rod in with my finger when the power is off and it goes in straight enough to juuust not catch on the bracket.

Here's a video showing what's happening:

[DMC-Ron]

I might consider a slight bend to offset the collar up just enough to clear where it is catching. Not easy to describe but here is a sketch that shows what I mean. It is exaggerated to show what gets altered. The actual amount of adjustment (bending) would be very small.

Actuator shaft adjust.JPG

Another option would be to remove the actuator and rout out the whole in the white plastic so the shaft bulb does not catch.

Ron

[PJ Grady Inc.]

This is a fairly common problem which eventually leads to the vacuum motor rod snapping off if not corrected in time. The noise is actually caaused by too much tension on the rod from the retainer ring if it is pushed all the way down till it stops on the rod. The easy fix is to back off the clip an 1/8" or so. If you glued the broken rod on straight then alignment should not be an issue. I've fixed this noise and eliminated the failure potential many times by simply backing off the clip tension.
Rob