pickyourpoison17
New Member
- Joined
- July 14, 2013
- Messages
- 2
- Reaction score
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- City, State
- St. Paul, Minnesota
- Year, Model & Trim Level
- 1998 Ford Explorer
1998 Explorer Eddie Bauer, AWD V8. Here is a link to the same climate control(CC) unit my truck has.
http://i.ebayimg.com/t/95-96-97-Ford-Explorer-Heater-Climate-Control-EATC-ATC-/05/!B40VkhwEWk~$(KGrHqYOKioEyYwMu6uUBMrQ-bWQgw~~_35.JPG
Searched the forum and found many posts that were similar but nothing that was dead on match. I tend to ramble a lot so I'll give a summary of what's going on and when.
1-Cannot adjust temperature at all with red or blue buttons. If it starts blowing cold, it stays cold, regardless if raising the temp higher. If it blows hot, it stays hot. If I press "max AC", it will cool the air a bit but is still hot.
2-Fan only blows on high speed when using the "auto" button. Regardless of the outside temp and what the CC is set to, it's always high speed for blower. The Manual switch will not activate blower unless it's in the upper range, then it blows high. Also, prior to this current issue, when activating the CC, the fan responded immediately after turning on, starting out slow and builds up to speed. Now, when activating, there's a solid 5+ second pause of nothing working than BOOM, the blower's on at full blast.
3-If it's blowing cold air, sometimes there will be a "pop" and the air instantly becomes ultra hot. Seems to me this happens most often when I'm braking and starting to make a right turn.
4-After the "pop" sound, I immediately shut off the air and turn it back on. I'd say 50% of the time, it reverts to cold air as if nothing happened. Other 50% of the time it stays hot, sometimes a little cooler than it just was, but still hot. Sometimes it takes a minute of cycling CC off/on, sometimes it takes 5 minutes, eventually it ends up going back to cold.
5-I read on some other posts that people heard a "clicking" sound coming from the glovebox while adjusting the temp. I have never heard any clicking at all. Just the "pop" sound.
6-A while back I had a shop run a system check on the check engine light and it came back as a vacuum leak but truck ran and still runs very well. No rough idle, gas mileage good, etc. They assumed it was the fuel cap not sealing properly.
7-I recharge my AC once a year myself with the usual can of freon. My AC was not working well this spring until I charged it. It was working fine for about a month until this issue started happening.
8-After reading about the self-diagnostic mode, I tried it out. For some reason, I can't get it to enter the diagnostic mode. It just keeps turning the blower fan on. Does this unit not have that mode? ALSO....after tinkering with it for about 10 minutes, suddenly the blower fan has reverted to the "start off slow and build up speed" instead of hesitating and turning on full-blast. Not sure if this is just temporary or not...will know tomorrow when I leave for work. Despite this, the temp control buttons still have no affect on the temp. of the air coming out.
I'm not familar with how everything works, and the majority I think I understand now is from reading through these forums..lol... but I assume that the "pop" I hear is the blend door closing, hence the immediate cold-to-ultra-hot change. When I put "max AC" on, that's coming from a different vent? Hence why it does cool the air just alittle bit?
Since the hot/cold buttons do nothing to adjust the temperature, is that an actuator issue? Does it even matter what the actuator does if there's a blend door issue?
Is the pop sound happening while turning and braking a dead give-away to the issue?
Could the vacuum leak found earlier be a hose for the AC system and if so, would it cause any of these issues?
Regarding the codes that show up off the diagnostic deal, since I can't get that to start on the actual unit, if I take the truck somewhere and have it scanned, will the codes still show up or do they only show up if you can activate the scan on the CC unit itself? Is it even worth it to do that?
And finally, I had a 91 Cougar that lost AC and I had to replace some sort of control module/board behind the glovebox where you could visibly see a capacitor/diode thing on the pc board had burnt up. Could an issue like this be the culprit for the lack of temp control or are the signs pointing to the actuator/blend door combo? Is it possible to "reset" the CC unit, such as disconnecting the negative cable to reset everything, to see if maybe the computer's being stupid?
Sorry for the long post but wanted to be as descriptive as possible and provide as much info as I've noticed so far in case others have similar/same issues. Any help/direction will be appreciated as I am basically in the dark when it comes to electrical/climate control issues.
Thanks in advance to anyone who responds. I'll check back soon otherwise you can email me directly at my username at gmail. Thanks again!
http://i.ebayimg.com/t/95-96-97-Ford-Explorer-Heater-Climate-Control-EATC-ATC-/05/!B40VkhwEWk~$(KGrHqYOKioEyYwMu6uUBMrQ-bWQgw~~_35.JPG
Searched the forum and found many posts that were similar but nothing that was dead on match. I tend to ramble a lot so I'll give a summary of what's going on and when.
1-Cannot adjust temperature at all with red or blue buttons. If it starts blowing cold, it stays cold, regardless if raising the temp higher. If it blows hot, it stays hot. If I press "max AC", it will cool the air a bit but is still hot.
2-Fan only blows on high speed when using the "auto" button. Regardless of the outside temp and what the CC is set to, it's always high speed for blower. The Manual switch will not activate blower unless it's in the upper range, then it blows high. Also, prior to this current issue, when activating the CC, the fan responded immediately after turning on, starting out slow and builds up to speed. Now, when activating, there's a solid 5+ second pause of nothing working than BOOM, the blower's on at full blast.
3-If it's blowing cold air, sometimes there will be a "pop" and the air instantly becomes ultra hot. Seems to me this happens most often when I'm braking and starting to make a right turn.
4-After the "pop" sound, I immediately shut off the air and turn it back on. I'd say 50% of the time, it reverts to cold air as if nothing happened. Other 50% of the time it stays hot, sometimes a little cooler than it just was, but still hot. Sometimes it takes a minute of cycling CC off/on, sometimes it takes 5 minutes, eventually it ends up going back to cold.
5-I read on some other posts that people heard a "clicking" sound coming from the glovebox while adjusting the temp. I have never heard any clicking at all. Just the "pop" sound.
6-A while back I had a shop run a system check on the check engine light and it came back as a vacuum leak but truck ran and still runs very well. No rough idle, gas mileage good, etc. They assumed it was the fuel cap not sealing properly.
7-I recharge my AC once a year myself with the usual can of freon. My AC was not working well this spring until I charged it. It was working fine for about a month until this issue started happening.
8-After reading about the self-diagnostic mode, I tried it out. For some reason, I can't get it to enter the diagnostic mode. It just keeps turning the blower fan on. Does this unit not have that mode? ALSO....after tinkering with it for about 10 minutes, suddenly the blower fan has reverted to the "start off slow and build up speed" instead of hesitating and turning on full-blast. Not sure if this is just temporary or not...will know tomorrow when I leave for work. Despite this, the temp control buttons still have no affect on the temp. of the air coming out.
I'm not familar with how everything works, and the majority I think I understand now is from reading through these forums..lol... but I assume that the "pop" I hear is the blend door closing, hence the immediate cold-to-ultra-hot change. When I put "max AC" on, that's coming from a different vent? Hence why it does cool the air just alittle bit?
Since the hot/cold buttons do nothing to adjust the temperature, is that an actuator issue? Does it even matter what the actuator does if there's a blend door issue?
Is the pop sound happening while turning and braking a dead give-away to the issue?
Could the vacuum leak found earlier be a hose for the AC system and if so, would it cause any of these issues?
Regarding the codes that show up off the diagnostic deal, since I can't get that to start on the actual unit, if I take the truck somewhere and have it scanned, will the codes still show up or do they only show up if you can activate the scan on the CC unit itself? Is it even worth it to do that?
And finally, I had a 91 Cougar that lost AC and I had to replace some sort of control module/board behind the glovebox where you could visibly see a capacitor/diode thing on the pc board had burnt up. Could an issue like this be the culprit for the lack of temp control or are the signs pointing to the actuator/blend door combo? Is it possible to "reset" the CC unit, such as disconnecting the negative cable to reset everything, to see if maybe the computer's being stupid?
Sorry for the long post but wanted to be as descriptive as possible and provide as much info as I've noticed so far in case others have similar/same issues. Any help/direction will be appreciated as I am basically in the dark when it comes to electrical/climate control issues.
Thanks in advance to anyone who responds. I'll check back soon otherwise you can email me directly at my username at gmail. Thanks again!
