a/c fault and vaccum pipe

[jddanks]

Last week , my ac started acting up, it was working fine, then on wednesday i turned it on max ac, cold air came out of the dash vents ( the main ones that blow air on driver and passenger), but then it started switching from those vents to the defrost vent and back again every minute or so, then next day i turn on the ac and all i get is hot air, no matter what position i set the controls to (temp and vent controls) i looked on here and seen about the blend door probs, but they all seem to say that with that prob you do get cold air on max ac. any way next day i fiddled with the temp knob, and kinda pulled it as i turned it to cold and lo an beold cold came out, but again on max ac it started to switch from vent to defrost, i turned the setting to just plain ac and it stayed cold and kept comming from the dash vent..until next day ..then it came out hot, and wont change. anyway i seen on here it may be a vaccum hose come loose so i went looking, and heres where i may need Howards help once again, as he seems to be the vac expert on here. on mine theres two vac hoses come out from under the ac box on the bulkhead, and go along the bulkhead and head to the front of the car, the black one goes into the vac reservoir, as does another black one that comes from under the coil pack(i think it is joined to a red line from the manifold) but, there is also a grey pipe which follows the first black line from under the ac by the bulkhead, and runs alongside it all the was to the front, however this grey pipe ends right next to the front of the coolant bottle, at its end is a rubber connector thats obviously supposed to be connected somewhere, question is...where?? ive looked and looked and can see no place or pipe to connect it to..anyone any idea?? or even does anyone know just what its for?
hopeing yall can help
Dave

 

[Howard]

The grey pipe connects to the heater valve. It is right under the alternator. This would explain why you get hot air and not nice cold stuff.

 

[jcasey007]

I broke the same pipe on mine last week changing the spark plugs, if it is the same one then it goes to a valve which looks like it turns off the coolant to the heater. The valve is in line with the 15mm water pipe that comes out of the bulkhead on the drivers side. The valve is down below the serpentine belt at the front of the engine

cheers

Jim

(post crossed over with Howards )

 

[jddanks]

Thanks to both of you, I'll go look while i wait on paint drying

 

[jddanks]

pipe back on, but still a prob

Well, the pipe is back on, however, now i do got the correct symptoms for a bad blend door..now i have partial cold when on ac max and hot on everything else, whats weird is i was getting very cold air when it did work last week, could the door thing breaking(if it has) have caused the vac pipe to come apart, or is it just a coincidence?.or could it be something else?, and whilst on this subject, i read the fix post on the blend door(the one where you remove the actuator thingy and drill a 1/16th hole and then pin it) and it reads that you prise the white box off the four retaining pins..well on mine they aint pins, theys hex head screws and it would take an act of congress to get at the two at the back and then it would be way harder to get em back in without losing em. are uk explorers diferant to the us ones in this respect or is mine just a ***** of a one

 

[BIGHVM]

"i may need Howards help once again, as he seems to be the vac expert on here. "
Hmmm- I thought that was all forgotten about- Henry stopped smiling since Howard got one! LOl!!!

 

[Howard]

Before you go tearing your hair out. Check that there are no other pipes off. Do the vents adjust correctly (screen,floor,face etc). Yes we do have a slightly different heater module (ours are on the left). Its a dash out job. Not as hard as you think just time consuming.

 

[jcasey007]

if another pipe is off will there be a low manifold vacum? I'm right in thinking that all vacum devices come off the vacum pipe tree so unless the vacum accumilator would mask the issue you might be able to measure the available vacum before stripping the dash

cheers

jim

 

[janolsson]

Hey jd
The vac lines go to a reservoir under the air box so check your connections there.
In the photo below you can see the vac line you had to reconnect but also below it you can see 2 lines that run along the frame to the reservoir.

The picture below (upside down i think) is the vac reservoir

.

There is a thread here with somw other pics and a more complete description of the routing of the vac hoses
http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=277295
HTH