So The car has never given and trouble with the air ride, until today. i have the car loaded and a boat behind it for a 900 mile drive home, and i get down the road and notice the car is riding rougher then normal. so i stop and the dang thing is nearly sitting on the ground. i checked everything simple i could, but had to keep driving. made it home finally after the roughest ride ever....

so now i get to start looking for what went wrong. i think the compressor is behind the front right headlight if i remember and will have to track down the relay and stuff for it.... so wish me luck!

 

When you turn the ignition on, do you hear the compressor come on?....and what year is it?

 

I should have put that sorry its a 2004 navigator. no i never heard the compressor yesterday,,,

 

The same thing happened to me a few months ago and it was the connector that is over the steering column. Not hard to find and easy to replace. Ford part number 2L1Z-5B322-AA and the cost is between $18 and $30, depending on your dealer.

 

well you guys will love this update, and American air-1 I am sure you have seen this before if you rebuild compressors.

So as I stated, it just randomly started happening and didnt know why. So when i got home last night i parked it then went to work on it this afternoon. The compressor was not coming on so i got straight to work chasing down the power situation. checked it at the relay and had good power getting to it, then checked the relay and all was fine there. so it was getting power to the compressor but not running, so with the compressor in my hand i had my help to on the key and i could feel the compressor motor start to turn then stop, kind of like the piston was seized. So i took it to the work table and started taking it apart. the first thing i wanted to remove was the end cover where the motor meets the compressor, this is where the piston rod with meet the motor and i figured i could see which one was the culprit and try to fix from there. well i got the cover off and immediately the problem presented itself. the rod was thrown off of the motor! if you can imagine a regular piston rod, and how it joins to the crankshaft, where the "crankshaft" is on this setup is a bearing that the rod is pressed over. the rod had come off the bearing and was just laying there, it was also jamming the motor from turning any. so i pressed the rod back onto the bearing and reassembled it and everything worked perfectly! however i am surprised the fuse didnt blow from being overloaded when the motor was trying to run and the rod was jamming it up.

so there you have it. car is all back in the air now! just had to do a slight rebuild on the compressor!

 

Did you take any pics of the process? If so please post them.

 

Sorry Moto mel, wish i did, but I did not. whole process took about an hour, and if anyone ever searches and finds this post in the future just shoot me a message and i will be happy to help out. its very simple.
+step one, remove the windshield washer reservoir, its held in by three bolts, and two plugs, no need to remove the tubing for the liquid there is plenty of it to move it out of the way.
+step two remove compressor. there are three bolts holding this in as well. then you will need to disconnect the plug to the compressor (clip plug with two clips) and then also remove the relay block. also, there is a canister on the compressor, that is the air outlet for the pump. remove the one phillips head screw, and rotate the canister and it comes off. Now you have the compressor (and bracket) in your hands. now you can diagnose it further. I took the end inspection plate off that is held on by three bolts. you can see where it has a bead of silicon sealing it, so bump the plate off with a hammer and now you can see the rod and end of the motor.

Thats it. to install, read the above backwards

 

Trust me when I say that you were very lucky the rod didn't break. That's what happens 95% of the time anyway.

 

The rod was in 3 pieces when I replaced my '94 Mark VIII's compressor.
I am mainly interested in the disassembly of the pump from the motor.

 

moto mel, I did not have to take the pump from the motor, just that end inspection plate off. So sorry I cannot help you there. It seems like when designed they would have made the inspection plate about an 1/8th inch from the rod so it would not be able to work its way off of the end of the bearing. But yes I feel very lucky that the project only cost me time and a rough ride home!