Grease for Blend Door Actuator

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I ordered the "stronger" gear that is supposed to be the problem with my 2011 Impala. It didn't work. I noticed the BDA had very little grease when changing the gear. It came with a tiny tube of Super Lube. So I thought more grease may help.

It did help some. The clicking now only happens if I turn the thermostat all the way to cold or hot and randomly when the car is not running and it's much more quiet. I applied high temp wheel bearing and disc brakes grease because it was in the gun. Will this be ok? I'm planning on getting a new BDA since the new gear likely didn't work due to the other gears probably messed up as well. I would like to add this or another grease to the new part as a preventative measure.
 
Petroleum derived greases (as opposed to silicone greases) may interact negatively with nylon gears. I know I opened up the BDA in my 1992 Oldsmobile one time, and it was basically bone-dry of lube, so I re-did it with silicone lube and its been okay for the past 10 years or so. Even the clear dielectric grease is probably a better idea than petroleum grease that you'd use on wheel bearings for that application.
 
It was probably warpage or plastic brittleness, not lack of lube on something that isn't high speed and only a brief moment of intermittent duty. l'd put only a tiny amount of silicone grease on it and something light like dielectric.

Clicking? If you have other gears stripped, either replace them or live with it but grease won't rebuild a stripped gear, but if too viscous in cold weather, it might put extra drag on it which can't be good.
 
Originally Posted by zzyzzx
Isn't any type of lube going to cause dirt to stick someplace where you really don't want it to?


The DBA's are sealed, so they're not really exposed to dirt. The problem in my experience is that the lubricant literally dries out.
 
I would use the CRC spray graphite lubricant instead of grease for above mentioned reasons.
 
Originally Posted by tundraotto
I would use the CRC spray graphite lubricant instead of grease for above mentioned reasons.


No, graphite in electronics/electrical stuff = really bad.
 
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