2002 Ranger; Help Troubleshoot Why A/C & Heat Blows Thru Defrost Only - No Vents

[vsromero]

A day after my 2002 Ranger truck had no problem with it's A/C or heating ventilation system blowing out of any selected vent levels (defrost, face/middle or floor levels), is now "stuck" in defrost mode even when level selector is changed to any other level.

Questions, what is the most common problem to this issue besides a vacuum leak? What would be the first thing to check when trying to diagnose this problem? How much of a difference are the 95-01 Rangers compared to the 2002 model year?

I did find a thread on this forum regarding this problem, only it was for the 95-01 Ranger model years, yet they say that the 2002 Ranger is not the same as those earlier models.

Are the Explorer and Ranger trucks basically the same or somewhat similar when compared to the same model years when it comes to the engine and ventilation systems? If so, does anyone know where I could find a diagram of the vacuum circuit in order to help troubleshoot this problem? Pictures would also help.

Any and all help and/or advice is greatly appreciated.

 

[Tbars4]

..Do a search on here for "Blend door"..

..It should answer all your repair questions on this subject..The Explorer is an RBV (Ranger Based Vehicle) with some obvious differences..

 

[vsromero]

Who knew, that in order to fix a problem where air only blows out of the defrost vents, is to look under the hood. After spending a great amount of time trying to trace the problem under the dash board, behind the A/C switch panel and behind the glove box, I had come to the conclusion that the problem was beyond my limited mechanical expertise. In other words, I had no idea what I was doing.

But then, a few days later, on a cool, cloudy day, I got to thinking about what other members from a couple of different online Ford truck forums were saying about this problem. They mentioned that when they experienced this same problem, but on older Ford Ranger models, they said that their problem was with their vacuum reservoir hidden inside the front passenger side wheel-well above the tire.

So, to make long story longer, I did some research and found out that the vacuum reservoir to a 2002 Ranger Edge was located next to the battery on the passenger side. I then go out to my Ranger truck, pop the hood, I located the vacuum reservoir and, low and behold, there it was, a severed hard-plastic vacuum line coming out of the vacuum reservoir. HEY - too many commas in that last sentence!

Anyway, that vacuum line that came out of the vacuum reservoir went up, over the engine, towards the driver's side of the engine and into the A/C compressor housing (a little better with the commas in this one). The hard-plastic vacuum line that comes out of the vacuum reservoir and into the A/C compressor has a couple of couplers that break up the vacuum line into sections, which makes it easy to replace whatever section that is damaged instead of replacing the whole line altogether.

The take-away? Because of a broken hard-plastic vacuum reservoir line, located under the hood, that has now been repaired, air now blows out of any vent level selected.

Who knew?