bronchole
Driveway flexing!
- Joined
- May 13, 2009
- Messages
- 792
- Reaction score
- 50
- City, State
- Los Angeles, CA
- Year, Model & Trim Level
- 1997 Monsterneer
- Callsign
- KI6MCO
My vehicle: 1997 Merc Mountaineer 5.0 V8 AT with normal/manual climate control with knobs and dials, not the fancy digital one with all the push buttons.
I had an issue where the blower motor for the AC and vents in the dash would continue to run after the ignition was turned off. Several other odd things were also happening. The power windows would still work, not just for a few minutes but hours and days after ignition off. The ding would go off when any door was open even though the key was not in the ignition and the most annoying one was the battery would go dead after not being driven for several days.
The blower would work thru all speed ranges (while the key was in the run position) and while driving everything worked as you would expect.
Just simply turning the AC control knob to off when the key was out would not shut the fan off. I had to turn the key to the run position before the fan would shut off. All the other problems would still be there though.
After a couple hours of troubleshooting and a couple hours of research on this good forum I found the problem. One of the relays for the fan control system was bad. This is the center relay of the 30A relays on the relay module mounted just under the air intake box on the passenger front fender. By the time I found the problem (about 3 weeks or so since the problem started showing) the fan motor stopped working altogether. That was the final factor in figuring this one out. No A/C in SoCal during the summer months is a problem!. When I pulled all 3 of these relays to check them out the bad one had an obvious burnt discoloration around one of the prongs on the bottom of it. I checked continuity on all 3 without powering the coils and all said they were good. Connecting the coil of each one, you get the satisfying click and continuity to the N.O. contact on the good ones. The bad one would not even click. Either the coil was burnt out or the internal mechanism was melted down. I hunted around for a normal lighting relay and jammed it in the hole and put the other 2 relays back. Now everything works as it is supposed to.
I am guessing that the weird things going on were a result of the "stuck" relay back-feeding the systems in a way other than what Ford had in mind when they designed the system. Can't blame them much for that.
I hope this helps someone else running in to a similar problem.
Dan
I had an issue where the blower motor for the AC and vents in the dash would continue to run after the ignition was turned off. Several other odd things were also happening. The power windows would still work, not just for a few minutes but hours and days after ignition off. The ding would go off when any door was open even though the key was not in the ignition and the most annoying one was the battery would go dead after not being driven for several days.
The blower would work thru all speed ranges (while the key was in the run position) and while driving everything worked as you would expect.
Just simply turning the AC control knob to off when the key was out would not shut the fan off. I had to turn the key to the run position before the fan would shut off. All the other problems would still be there though.
After a couple hours of troubleshooting and a couple hours of research on this good forum I found the problem. One of the relays for the fan control system was bad. This is the center relay of the 30A relays on the relay module mounted just under the air intake box on the passenger front fender. By the time I found the problem (about 3 weeks or so since the problem started showing) the fan motor stopped working altogether. That was the final factor in figuring this one out. No A/C in SoCal during the summer months is a problem!. When I pulled all 3 of these relays to check them out the bad one had an obvious burnt discoloration around one of the prongs on the bottom of it. I checked continuity on all 3 without powering the coils and all said they were good. Connecting the coil of each one, you get the satisfying click and continuity to the N.O. contact on the good ones. The bad one would not even click. Either the coil was burnt out or the internal mechanism was melted down. I hunted around for a normal lighting relay and jammed it in the hole and put the other 2 relays back. Now everything works as it is supposed to.
I am guessing that the weird things going on were a result of the "stuck" relay back-feeding the systems in a way other than what Ford had in mind when they designed the system. Can't blame them much for that.
I hope this helps someone else running in to a similar problem.
Dan
