'01 Limited Sport. Air is blowing through defrost only. Ran the mityvac on the vacuum system and it's definitely something in the dash, rest of the system is fine and holds vacuum. Most of the air direction modes cause vacuum loss, when this middle air direction control **** is set to O(off) the system holds vacuum, and on at least the face vents I can hear hissing at that control **** when pumping the mityvac so I'm assuming that middle control is bad and therefore the entire climate control assembly needs to be replaced. At least that's what I'm hoping because I really don't want to pull the dash to test/replace the vent door actuators.

The fan speed and temp controls are plugs so those are easy enough, but that middle vent direction control **** is fed by vacuum lines that don't want to come out of that yellowish/clear rubber manifold on the back of the controls, and the manifold doesn't appear to be removable. All the climate controls on eBay show the vacuum lines cut an inch or so from the manifold. How do I deal with those vacuum lines so I can replace the climate controls? Want to make sure I know what I'm doing before I buy the replacement.

 

The manifold should come off, remove the 2 nuts holding it on and give it a little wiggle. The lines are probably glued into the manifold.

Found an auction showing the manifold removed: https://www.ebay.com/itm/99-00-01-Je...YAAOSwmehgB~q-

 

There are two plastic posts that go through the manifold, and each one has a nut on it but the posts aren't threaded.

 

if you look at the nuts you'll notice they're designed to "cut" their own groove. they should back off just like a standard nut though. Just be careful and take your time.