96 explorer, only blows hot air

[wildstang]

I have a 96 v8 explorer and unless the the heater is turned off, all it does is blow out hot air. It has the turn knob for temp adjustment (red for hot to blue for cold) but does not do anything. I have read some other posts about blend doors and looking for codes through a self test but any help is appreciated. Thanks.

 

[pgdsm]

mine did that for a while. I did the bled door repair and all was well for a cppl days. Then doing another mod I changed my GEM and presto everything works! I however have the electronic climate control on my 96.

 

[David Suesz]

That's the classic

symptoms of a blend door problem. If you are lucky, your blend servo has failed. If you open the glove box all the way, until it hangs straight down, and look through the upper left corner of the opening at the heater, the little white box on top of the heater is the servo. Using a tiny screwdriver, pop the rear edge up off the clip pins. Using a larger, longer screwdriver, pop the front edge off the clip pins. Turn the ignition on, and the heater. Adjust the heat control from cold to hot, etc. The shaft should rotate about 90°, strongly, and reposition wherever you stop the heat knob. If nothing happens, ta da! You can fix your heater easily. Just make sure you line up the D shaped hole when installing the servo, you'll need a small mirror on a stick to look down into the heater. If, on the other hand, the servo works, you have the blend door problem. Use the same mirror to look at the D shaped hole in the top of the door shaft. If one or two sides of the D are broken away, you have a lot more work ahead of you. Just how much, I'll be finding out soon.

 

[oroper]

My 96 X also has this same problem.

David, I shall try your suggestions and will report.

TIA

-Oz

 

[wildstang]

thank you David, hopefully I can try this this weekend. Sounds like you have to take your heater apart to fix the broken part. If you don't mind, keep me posted on how that goes. Thanks again.

 

[RDesson]

Yeah. Me too

Oddly, My 96 has the same problem. I discovered last night that if you select Max AC the vacumn soleniod on the heater hoses closes so at least I have lots of heat or losts of cool. Somewhere in the middle would be nice.

 

[conig]

on my 96 I havn;t had that problem, if you hear your ac compressor kicking on then off(with ac to cold) its a freon issue. mine did do this the evaporator had a pin hole rusted into it and I was loosing all my freon.

 

[David Suesz]

Bad news on the blend door...

Pulled the evaporator loose, not too bad about an hour, had to remove the washer/radiator reservior, disconnected the heater hoses from the firewall, DON'T forget the vacuum plug in the car to the right of the inside evap case nut (I did) and removed the actuator from the top of the heater. Got the ecap about 8" away from the firewall, plenty of room to reach in and grab the blend door. No problem reaching all of it, from top to bottom. Even got the broken piece of the top out of the case. Spent over an hour trying to figure out a way to get the door out. No soap. I'll have to pull the dash after all.

On the other hand, I figured out in a New York minute whay it breaks. The original POS door is made with plain plastic. The new made-in-China door is made with fiber-impregnated plastic. Ford musta been desperate to save the 0.0001¢ they saved with the cheaper plastic, if flexing is any indication the Chinese door is about 3x the strength of the original.

 

[oroper]

Bah!!

I took a look at the actuator/servo (if correct name) and I DO NOT see the shaft attached. It looked like it was taken out.

Hmmm...

So, where can I get a new one to buy? I searched autozone, but did not see anything. How much does it cost?

S link would be appreciated.

TIA

 

[David Suesz]

Strange, I don't see how

The servo is a white nylon box on the top of the heater. The servo shaft sticks out the bottom of the servo and cannot be seen when it is installed. They turn up on eBay used, $10-$20, but are I think only available new from Ford, cost about $45 wholesale. I can't imagine how yours could be missing the actuator shaft.

 

[oroper]

David,

I purchased the car used (2years ago), and it seems I was negligent in checking it 100%.

It now has ~130K

The servo is looks damaged. I took it out and it fell apart in my hand (not literally, but).

So, they are on ebay huh....hmmm....or maybe I should go down to the ford dealer and check it out.

PS. The pic is what I'm talkign about. Mine has no shaft. Only a hole where the shaft should be.. $@$^&&

 

[Bowhunt24]

All these issues we are talking about here, are known issues to ford on the 95-01's i believe. Mine did the same thing, but I got shafted, my heater box actually broke!!! It's about 600 bones to have a mechanic fix it. I got in there, and just jimmied it around a little bit. Now I have Hot and A/C and nothing in between. Kinda sucks, but it works for now, and it didn't cost 600 bucks!!!

 

[wildstang]

I just checked mine out last night, kind of wierd. I pulled the servo off and turned the temp control switch and nothing, here comes the wierd part. If I pushed the connection up or down the servo would work but not buy using the switch. I am going to get a new servo and hopefully that will fix it. The other funny thing that happened to it was I drove it into the garage shut it off and later that night went out to check it out. I started it so I could test it and the upper idler pulley **** the bed, started grinding and smoking. So I pulled that off and will need to get a new one and will probably replace the belt while I am at it. It couldn't of happened in a more convienent place.

 

[oroper]

Went to the dealer down the street and had to fork out $70 :fire: for the part. Should be here tomorrow or Friday (they say)

:fire:

 

[wildstang]

The dealer I normally go through had to order it also and should be here tomorrow but will be around $40, but I called another dealer in the area to see if they had one in stock and they quoted me around $68. I go through my dad's account at the first one because he gets 20% off.

 

[David Suesz]

I am green with envy...

If I had a good blend door and bad actuator, my problems would be over with 20 minutes work, instead of the whole day I need to do.

 

[oroper]

If I had a good blend door and bad actuator, my problems would be over with 20 minutes work, instead of the whole day I need to do.

Don't get too envious as yet. If replacing the actuator doesn't fix my prob, then I may have to :exp: drive down to SE PA to see you

 

[Zulu95]

If you are pulling the plenum then take the opportunity to change out the heater core whilst there. It only costs around $80 and if it is the orignal should be worth doing to save having to pull everything out again.

 

[oroper]

Well DAvid,

I think I found out where the shaft went.

After picking up the new actuator today and attempting to install it, it wouldn't seat itself. Felt around and used a mirror and it seems the shaft got broken off and stuck/left in the hole (no pun intended)

Why oh Why !!

no I have to figure out a way to remove it without haveing to pay someone to do it for me.

Any suggestions anyone?

 

[David Suesz]

Oh my!

How about a bent nail with some epoxy cement on the head. Glue it to the broken shaft, wait, and extract the shaft. Too much glue will make things worse, so be careful.