I have no heat in the van, but strong AC. That's great for here Florida, but not so good when we travel North. I had checked both lines from the radiator and are hot going to the core. I checked the blender door actuator and it is working. I actually pulled the cover off the heating core and it was plenty hot. So I'm 99% sure it's the famous Econoline blender door that has broken. I know that's over a thousand dollar fix.
I'm curious if anyone has an oddball fix for this. I was thinking of carefully cutting a round hole in the plastic cover at the core. Putting a metal shut off on that to close as needed. Then also put in some sort of small fan over top of that hole. I would have the AC in the off position, so that wouldn't be running at that time. So, the small fan would just pull heat from the heater core into the cabin.
Thoughts?

 

If you are going to go through all that trouble you might as well fix the problem right, it just might be a lot easier.