Wife came home Friday and said her A/C didn't work. (It's a 2000 Mountaineer w/ 5.0, auto, AWD) Finally checked it out today and here is what I found. Compressor is kicking on every so often, like normal I would say. The condensor is getting cold along with 1 or both lines, can't really remember now. Doesn't matter what setting the automatic control is set to in the cabin, auto, max a/c, vent, pnl, flr, or what fan setting is selected either on the panel or on the steering wheel. The rear a/c fan blows and gets moderately cold. If I switch from max a/c to vent I can feel just a little nice cold air escape through the vents. It seems to me the a/c system itself is okay, the fan just isn't blowing. I took a quick peek under the hood but didn't see anything obvious. I don't have the owners manual so I don't know what fuses or relays to check, but that seems a likely suspect. Any other ideas? I don't know much about the a/c heat system. I'm not even sure exactly where the dang fan itself is! Thanks for any help, I appreciate it. It's too damn hot down here in South Florida to not have working A/C!

 

You can ownload an Owners Guide here: http://www.genuineservice.com/genuineservice/en/default?page=Ea

The chapter on Roadside Emergencies will have the fuse layouts for the passenger compartment and the power distribution box under the hood. Hope your problem turns out to be a simple fuse replacement.

 

Thanks for the link. I'm going to try and get out to check them this afternoon. I'd be tickled if it was something that simple, but I'm not going to hold my breath. I figure the most expensive parts of the system seem to be still working, so if all else fails at least it won't cost me an arm and a leg to get it fixed if I can't do it myself. Of course I could be way off. Hopefully it's something I can do myself. Thanks again!

 

Not sure about your model year, but I'm fairly certain all vehicles have an HVAC blower resistor. This controls the speed of the fan. I just changed out the one on my wife's 97 Sunfire........bit of a pain. The resistor was $40 canuckle bucks.

 

Does the explorer have atandard A/C or automatic (you select the temp setting)? Standard will have a blower resister and the automatic usually has a blower speed control usually attached to the heat A/C case under the hood. Just had the same problem on my son's crown vic, it was the blower speed control.

 

It's the automatic one. I haven't had the opportunity to check the fuses yet, but I know I won't be that lucky. Hopefully I'll get a chance to look at it tomorrow. Wife had it gone all day and I worked this evening so no chance to look at it yet. Did you fix your son's yourself or did you take it in? Reasonably priced or is this going to cost me a chunk of change? Thanks for the input!

 

I checked the fuses and relays and they all seem to be fine. The fuses all had good continuity and as far as I can tell the realys are good as well. I also did a couple quick voltage checks and there is voltage at both fuses and both relays. I knew it wouldn't be that easy. I tried the EATC self test by pushing OFF + FLR and hitting AUTO within 2 seconds. I got the display with the bar spinning around, then all the lights in the EATC display lit up and stayed that way. I never got any error code, but I let it sit like that for about 5 minutes before giving up. Should it take longer than that to run the diagnostic? At this point I'm guessing it's the blower speed controller. I tried to look at it but couldn't get easy access to it to unplug it. I wiggled everything but it didn't do anything unfortunately. Any more ideas before I replace the speed controller? Thanks!

 

Okay, ran a jumper wire to the fan from the battery and fan worked fine. Checked for voltage at the plug and nothing. Also, self test on the EATC gave me a code 052, intermittent sun load sensor. Pretty sure that isn't going to keep the fan from blowing at all, so that's going on the back burner. Kinda knew about that anyway since the headlights come on in broad daylight when auto is selected. Anyway, I'm off to the local dealer to pick up a speed controller. Hope my diagnosis is correct!

 

Got the part in and installed it and everything works again. Fan speed controller was the culprit. Took about 20 - 30 minutes to replace, and about $75 or so for the part. Not too bad. Thanks!