I have a 2001 with manual ac controls.
Heater is not working, after a bit of research figured out my blend door is isn't working. After an hour or so of cussing got the actuator out and hooked 12 volts to motor and it works, huh? Any ideas?
There are 3 other wires going to the actuator, is that the PBR I read about in some posts? (A sensor built into the actuator) And, if so, could that be the problem?
Also, I tried to trace the wires from the control unit and they don't go directly to the blend door actuator, is there some sort of hidden control unit under dash somewhere, if so, anybody know where it is, as I would suspect this is the issue... Thanks as always!!

 

Here is a picture of a 4th gen air mix door motor opened up.

The PBR is a variable resistor that controls the motor speed and travel. In the photo, it is in the left half, bottom edge center.

What happened to this particular motor is that a copper contact (right half of photo, on white gear) corroded (notice the green color) and the contacts no longer made electrical connection. The motor itself was fine.

If you look at the PBR, just above it in the background, you will see 3 small curved strips of copper. These are what the contacts in the right half connect together.

But the control panel in the dash obviously has to be sending the power to the motor. Since you were able to jumper the motor and get it to work, it seems like you have a good motor. The temperature slider switch in the control panel sends the power directly to the motor, nothing in between the two.

In this link (http://boredmder.com/FSMs/Nissan/Maxima/2001/HA.pdf) the troubleshooting starts on page 181, but I think you can skip to page 183.

 

Fixed it, the temp control slider went bad, got one form a junkyard, pulled the unit apart and used the face from my unit (junkyard one was all scratched up)...,,when putting servo back in for flap, I couldn't get the screws all the way back in tight, so I used plastic wire ties to fill the gaps, pulled em tight, servo didn't jiggle around, works great!!!

 

Great work! It's amazing how complicated they can make something that should be simple.
Good perseverance got you good results.

 

wow, I would never thought the slider temp would be inoperative. usually I would thought it just the blend door.

 

That is a pessimistic point of view. But then, when the problem is not the worst scenario you were imagining, you come away smiling.

 

You're lucky it's not a GM. You would have just torched the car and called insurance.