Climate control issue

[hlh1]

I have a 2004 Eddie Bower Explorer that has been perfect for a long time. It now has 87k miles. Yesterday I turned on the Air Conditioning and it started normally by blowing cold air through the front vents, then a few minutest later it changed on it's own to start blowing cold air through the defrost vents, then a few minutes later it changed back to the front vents. Weird. What's going bad?

 

[MunkeyTX]

2004 Eddie Bauer, 130K

Just this weekend on a road trip, we experienced the same problems! I'm leaning toward vacuum leak.

Ours would only switch to defrost when it hit 2550'ish RPM's, then come back at any RPM above or below that range.

I'm searching the board to see if anyone else has had this problem...I'll post up if I find anything.

 

[hlh1]

2004 Eddie Bauer, 130K

Just this weekend on a road trip, we experienced the same problems! I'm leaning toward vacuum leak.

Ours would only switch to defrost when it hit 2550'ish RPM's, then come back at any RPM above or below that range.

I'm searching the board to see if anyone else has had this problem...I'll post up if I find anything.

Thanks! Today the system worked fine.

 

[MunkeyTX]

Thanks! Today the system worked fine.

Yep, same here, worked fine for three days straight. Maybe our Explorers are telepathically linked??

 

[hlh1]

If that's the case if you fix yours you'll have also fixed mine!

 

[hlh1]

Still having problems. Yesterday when accelerating pretty hard the AC stopped blowing through the front vents and moved to the defrost vents. When I backed off the throttle it returned to blower through the front vents. Anyone know of a fix?

 

[Donystoy]

It does sound like it might be a vacuum leak with those symptoms when you accelerate. The reservoir mounted under the glove box is to take over from the normal drop in engine vacuum when accelerating to maintain control function. A small vacuum leak would interfere with this.

 

[icepickjazz]

Still having problems. Yesterday when accelerating pretty hard the AC stopped blowing through the front vents and moved to the defrost vents. When I backed off the throttle it returned to blower through the front vents. Anyone know of a fix?

Could be a broken actuator is a very common problem. My Ex has similar problem problem. If I brake hard I can get the air to blow through dash. If I accelerate hard the air blows through the defrost. Drop your glove box and see if the actuator arm has broken off. See these threads for better pics.

http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=249624
See post 5 http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=323586

http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=397841

 

[hlh1]

It does sound like it might be a vacuum leak with those symptoms when you accelerate. The reservoir mounted under the glove box is to take over from the normal drop in engine vacuum when accelerating to maintain control function. A small vacuum leak would interfere with this.

Golly, how do you find a vacuum leak?

 

[hlh1]

Could be a broken actuator is a very common problem. My Ex has similar problem problem. If I brake hard I can get the air to blow through dash. If I accelerate hard the air blows through the defrost. Drop your glove box and see if the actuator arm has broken off. See these threads for better pics.

http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=249624
See post 5 http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=323586

http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=397841

Fantastic links; I'll be looking through my glove box area to see what I can find shortly.

 

[icepickjazz]

Donystoy post about vacuum leak very likely too. You can check the hose going into the vacuum reservoir for connections and cracks. There's been a few posts here about that hose cracking, getting crimped, coming loose, etc.

 

[hlh1]

I dropped the glove box door and had a look around. All the vacuum hoses were attached and looked good, especially to the vacuum canister and through the firewall. I looked at the vacuum motor to see if the pushrod was attached, and it is at the motor side, but I can't see the other end where it attaches to the door lever. My 2004 Eddie Bauer vacuum motor has a much longer rod attached that what I'm seeing in the pics posted elsewhere. I can see where there is a place that the shorter rod would attached but my attachment is another 4+ inches to the lower left.

For years now when I start the Explorer I'll hear a creaking door moving sound under the dash for a few seconds and some door moves. Until recently everything worked, and now all seems to be working again, for the moment.

 

[hlh1]

I finally found my problem. On the firewall/engine side I found a vacuum line that had become disconnected. I'm betting I did this when installing new spark plugs. Now the AC works, and the truck also runs better. It looked like the vacuum hose was connected, but when I touched the rubber connector it moved off the vacuum nipple. I Just pushed it back onto the nipple.