Blend Door, Actuator, or Vacuum issue??? HELP! | Ford Explorer Forums - Serious Explorations

  • Register Today It's free!

Blend Door, Actuator, or Vacuum issue??? HELP!

bmoney1229

New Member
Joined
March 8, 2013
Messages
5
Reaction score
0
City, State
Bay Area, Californ-I-A
Year, Model & Trim Level
1995 Ford Exploder EB
I've searched and read every blend door, A/C, and heater issue on the site, and I still can't figure this out! I'm befuddled. Here's what's going on:

First, the blower motor went out. No problem, right? I fixed that with no issues. Right after that, I started experiencing issues almost identicle to the infamous blend door syptoms, such as: A/C would turn hot, heater would turn cold, and the trickiest one to diagnose, it would switch between defrost, floor, and panel intermittently and more frequently when on the throttle or letting up on the throttle.

With that said, here's what I've done so far: checked for trouble codes - none, checked fuses - fuse #9 was out. this fuse is for the Message Center and EATC memory, but I dont see how that would effect performance of the EATC itself, I visually inspected all the vacuum lines and reservior - all looked fine.

So, I thought for sure it was a broken blend door. I cut open the box and checked the door. It's not broken but it doesn't move freely. Is it supposed to? Does that mean theres a problem with the actuator freezing up?

Does anyone have any advice? I have a 95 Exploder, Eddie Bauer. Thank you in advance

EDIT: I just unhooked the wire harness from the actuator, and noticed that someone put some clear hot glue around the connector on the actuator. I wonder if that means this unit has already been rebuilt...
 



Join the Elite Explorers for $20 each year.
Elite Explorer members see no advertisements, no banner ads, no double underlined links,.
Add an avatar, upload photo attachments, and more!
.





The EATC module may be at fault (even if it showed no trouble codes). This module has electrical solenoids inside of it that direct vacuum to different lines which open/close various doors. It is not uncommon for the o-rings in the solenoids to wear out over time and leak. Your module can be rebuilt for around $100. I've read a post where someone rebuilt his own solenoids, but after seeing what's involved, I rather pay to have someone else do it and get a warranty on the repair.
 






The EATC module may be at fault (even if it showed no trouble codes). This module has electrical solenoids inside of it that direct vacuum to different lines which open/close various doors. It is not uncommon for the o-rings in the solenoids to wear out over time and leak. Your module can be rebuilt for around $100. I've read a post where someone rebuilt his own solenoids, but after seeing what's involved, I rather pay to have someone else do it and get a warranty on the repair.

Makes sense. Do you know if the actuator would also effect the location that the air blows out? (floor, panel, etc.). Also, do you know if the door should move freely, or with moderate pressure? I pushed the door hard enough to where I thought it was going to snap right off the hinges and it only opened about 1/2 to 1 inch
 






Makes sense. Do you know if the actuator would also effect the location that the air blows out? (floor, panel, etc.). Also, do you know if the door should move freely, or with moderate pressure? I pushed the door hard enough to where I thought it was going to snap right off the hinges and it only opened about 1/2 to 1 inch

It very well may cause the air to blow out of different locations. I know that on the manually controlled version, the default setting is defrost if vacuum is low/lost. As far as I know the actuators and doors are connected by a small gear. That being the case, I wouldn't force it or the gear may snap a tooth. If you want to test, you could remove the EATC module (easy to do) and apply vacuum to each of the lines that connect to it to see what happens. It seems to me there's a diagram of what lines connect to which actuators somewhere on this site.
 






I think I got it figured out. I tried the vacuum test, but shortly thereafter I realized... I didn't know what the hell I was doing. So, I decided to just take the actuator out and dig into it.

Turns out the actuator had been rebuilt before, and whoever rebuilt it (clearly not a professional) soldered a wire on the board to complete a connection that was disconnected. The outer part of the wire wore too thin and shorted out on another part of the board. All I had to do was fix that wire.

Thanks for your help Koda. You saved me a bunch of time
 






Back
Top