hvac shenanigans

No pics, sorry, but posting this so maybe someone who replaces their dash can get their vents working properly again. If you swap just the dash it's not a problem, but because a lot of wiring carries over with the dash, and because Honda uses a bunch of modular harnesses to connect everything up, if you just plug it in it will not work.

Backstory: car gets broken into. Replaced 88 dash with 86 dash, leaving 88 wiring behind, except for 86 heater controls which come with dash and 86 hvac wiring. Vent controls subsequently do not work -- can't switch between defrost/hi-lo/etc.

86 and 88 vent door motors have different connectors: 5pin for 86, 8 pin for 88. 88 motors have a pigtail whereas 86 motors using a separate sub-harness that plugs right into the motor itself.

Ok, with that said, I'm selling the car in two weeks and needed to get the wiring working. After 3 trips to the junkyard, a set of broken vents, removing an 88 dash harness from a car at the junkyard, and various other bullshit shenanigans the controls work now.

The vent controls/buttons themselves plug in regardless of year, but the wiring is different. The 88 controls have 3 extra wires which run to the yellow connector that goes to the multijunction box. The wire colors for the 86 controls are the same as the 88, but are pinned differently so you have to move two wires to the vent control harness. Then, you have to add 3 extra wires to get the def/h-def/hi-lo buttons working. Rather than plugging into the blue connector at the multijunction box under the dash, these plug into the bottom row of the yellow connector at the bottom.

I have written out the wire colors/position, but don't have the card handy. Just wanted to post this while it was fresh in my mind.

Good to know. Thanks!

8 hrs, $20 and 3 trips to the junkyard and a whole lot of swearing and it works :)