The Airbox (the one for the A/C not the motor intake) is crumbling to bits, there are large holes where chunks have crumbled over time. Summer is arriving and i dont want to be stuck with no AC. Is there a way to get a new manufacture aftermarket one or an easy way to build one? i have access to materials and tools to do so.

 

From my many years here, what many describe to be crumbling is an outer cover (sound deadening insulation?) that GM used on some of these trucks and not the actual HVAC housing itself. Check it out and confirm though, but the HVAC housing should be a fiber reinforced PC or other industrial reinforced injection molded plastic while the part that typically gets complaints for crumbling is a blow-molded or roto-molded softer rubber-like material.

 

Don't you have to cut into the blower motor housing to access some of the maintenance . Then you have to patch up the access hole?!

 

Its probably that stuff, if i poke my hand inside i can feel the outer blower housing. it is highly annoying to have it crumbling like that but if its not going to cause air leaks or start sucking air from the engine bay into the cabin (with an exhaust leak - really bad idea) then its fine. Thanks.

 

I have seen where large chunks have come off and fallen down onto the exhaust at the firewall making for an horrific smoke show and smell, but no fires that I have heard of yet. You may want to investigate how bad the deterioration is though and mitigate that concern by attempting to remove as much of that outer housing as is necessary to either get back to good material or get it out of there completely.

But yeah, if it is just the outer cover as I described, you aren't in any danger of getting anything from the engine side into the cabin side. It might be a bit more noisy without the cover, but that would be all.

 

I've been wondering what was the point of that... my box was half gone when I got the truck, and it's only fallen apart more over the last 2 years. Hasn't effected anything with my controls and I honestly dont realy hear a difference with or without it(my moms jimmy has one intact).

 

Yeah, these trucks aren't exactly quiet inside when new compared with other vehicles from the same era so the effectiveness is definitely questionable. Someone somewhere thought it was a good idea or else the bean counters would have tossed the idea. Maybe it is for thermal efficiency? Who knows. Regardless, if it's falling apart, it is becoming less effective at its originally intended purpose and might actually become more of a ticking time bomb as I have mentioned.