I bought a 1996 Chrysler LHS with 189,000 miles that runs great, but it does have some issues I need to fix.

1. The heater/AC fan in the car stays on and I can not turn it off. I can not adjust the speed of the fan in the car up or down either. Heater and A/C both work great though.

2. The stereo volume **** is hard to adjust the volume up and down, but it does work eventually.

3. The emergency brake cable under the dash is completely broke in half.

Any ideas on how to fix these problems? Thanks.

 

1. Probably the resistor block for the heater blower, or blower module if it's ATC.

2. Not much to be done there, you can't buy parts for the radio. Either live with it or replace the whole radio.

3. You'll need to replace the brake cable and probably more parts as well because it's highly likely that parts of the system are rusted up and not working. That could be either a cause or the result of the broken cable. Parking brakes tend to rust up and seize if not used regularly.

It's a 15-year-old vehicle and you have to expect some "issues". Parts may be hard to come across. Places like rockauto.com and eBay on the internet may be helpful, as may be your local junkyards.

 

Good tip on the resistor block or blower module for the fan, thanks.

I was going to just patch together the brake cable to see if I could get it working before replacing the cable.

I would spray contact cleaner into the volume pot on the radio, but I would have to tear it out of the car to do that.

This car had a leaking power steering hose and it was very difficult to replace. I had to buy a metric Craftsman crowfoot wrench set from Sears just to get it off and put the new hose back on. The leak is fixed now. The crowfoot wrench set should come in handy in the future...

 

My guess would be the atc control.

 

dcotter & gn300

It was the blower module/ATC control. My Chrysler LHS is a 1996. I tore the ATC control out of a 1994 Chrysler LHS at the wrecking yard, it was good and it worked. This is not the easiest part to replace for any forum member reading this post with the same problem. This part is located below the glove box under the dash just above the top of the carpet on the passengers side. You remove the two screws holding this part in it's place and then remove the two sets of wires that plug into the atc control module. This part would not be hard to remove except it is in a difficult area to get to under the dash.

 

Glad you found it, feels good to do it yourself right.

 

gn300

It's a beautiful thing when you buy a 1996 Chrysler LHS needing some repairs and some smart people on the Chrysler forum tell you exactly how to fix the problem. Just knowing that replacing the ATC control module in this car would solve the fan problem was the exact information I needed. Saves a huge amount of time knowing exactly what to do. I like fixing things myself if I can do it.

I also fixed the broken emergency brake cable in this car which was broken under the dash. I bought a thimble and clamp set for use with 3/32" and 1/8" wire cable. This clamp set came with three clamps and it was $1.98 at Home Depot. I also bought a one foot piece of wire cable at Home Depot and had them cut it in half so I had two six inch sections (it was close to the same size of cable on the emergency brake). I used one piece of six inch cable and two clamps to re connect the broken emergency brake cable. The first time I made the patch and put the emergency brake on it functioned properly, but the brake did not engage because the patch needed to be shorter. I applied the emergency brake full on which pulls the cable up from under the car. The original emergency brake cable had a piece of clear plastic on it when it was pulled far enough into the car when the emergency brake was applied. I put a vise grip on the cable coming into the car at that point where the plastic covering was on the cable to hold it in place(prevent the cable from going back under the car) and then I took the emergency brake off and shortened the patch to tighten things up. Once I did that the emergency brake worked properly and it applied the brakes on the car. I have never seen an emergency brake cable broken on a car ever, so this was a first for me. I have no idea what one of the previous owners did to snap the cable in half.