Spent a little time on the site (great site by the way), and haven't seen this yet, sorry if I missed it and this should go somewhere else...

The **** that you use to select where the air is going (ie. floor only, vents, etc.) is not working. The only place I'm getting a good flow of air is the two small defrost vents for the side windows. It also only works on high setting, which I've read this feature is likely the resistor. I took the glove box down yesterday and didn't see resistor, I guess I need to dig deeper. There is an empty plug there although I don't think it is related, maybe someone can help me with that too (I think I attached picture). If it didn't attach, then it a white female rectangler plug, with rounded off corners, which is located looking down and right in the glove box hole. Am I making sense?

 

In a 97, the fan resistor is visible under the glove box. (You don't need to remove it.) It is mounted on the visible face of the air box near the bottom in the passenger foot well. If any crud gets in the ductwork and hangs up on the resistor, it will burn up and probably take part of the wiring harness with it. (Mine did.)

The flapper controls are vacuum operated. Under the hood, near where the A/C pipes enter the firewall is a little tiny black vacuum line that goes through the firewall. If that is not getting a vacuum signal or is broken, none of your internal controls for the air direction will work. I had to run a completely new line off the intake manifold to the back of the switch housing to fix mine.

 

Check the vaccum reservoir behind the front bumper for a loose vaccum line or a cracked reservoir. Poor or no vaccum and you'll only get air through the defrost ducts.

 

Thanks.

 

The vacum reservoir was just hanging by the vacum line, which was good just needed to be remounted. The problem was the tiny black line that went through the firewall - broken in half. I cut some windsheild washer line off an old car and forced each side of the broken line into it. Works great now! But p1491 still comes back after deleting almost immediately, I was hoping the fix would have killed two problems in one. The words on code are "Manfactured Controlled aux. emission controls", or something like that (not the radiator fan thing -I don't think, was told its an EVAP leak, i.e. line or bad gas cap). Still need to get to the resistor, but I think I may need to clean out the windshield defroster vent first because most of my air is still coming through two small vents for the side windows when I have it on defrost. Any tips on this or the code would be appreciated (if I need to start a new thread, no prob). I've also got to rebuild my NSS, but have found good write ups about it through this site! Thanks all. And the Jeep did awesome in the snow!

 

Glad to help. The P1491 code on an XJ is weird. That doesn't cross to an Evap code. When the stupid variable fan relay went in my daughter's 01 grand, that is the code that came up.

What are you using to get the Evap description for the p1491?

 

Simple code reader, much like auto zone uses. I delete it, and it pops right back up after cranking it up, although I almost got to the end of the driveway after fixing the above vacum line.

 

Hmm. We had an evap type code on the WJ as well. I don't remember what code it was, but I was finally able to track it down to a sensor on the drivers side fender well that was unplugged.