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That's the biggest time saving move you can make Pick'r, trust me on that!
Twice I've dismantled a lot of components inside and under the hood looking for that Loch Ness Monster of a never seen part---if I didn't know better I'd swear they just didn't exist!
Its odd it can be so easily and cheaply bypassed so maybe its a non-issue for anyone facing this repair and lucky enough to have found us here on FTE.
I went to the dealership near my house yesterday to buy some other parts & the parts guy gave me a diagram - & said it was mounted on top of the blower plenumn on my year/model. The picture looks like it is there but I went out & hunted for it & no luck. This must be one of the best kept secrets in the trade. Kinda like sending the apprentice for a bucket of steam, Ha - Fandnago I say .
It's under the unit, basically, the stealership vacs out the system, removes the dash, and pulls the entire heat/ac box out of the passenger side to get access to replace it, I heard a $1700 job. So you can either cut through the passenger wheelwell, or relocate the dam thing to a spot where you can get access, inside the van, pull the radio out to get your hand in behind the dash to route the hoses, drill through the firewall to pull in the vac line. This is the result of building a vehicle without leaving room to access parts that may fail in the future, face it, studies show buyers don't keep the vehicles past 5 years anyhow, and second owners are not a concern, they just build it to last for 100,000 miles.
It's under the unit, basically, the stealership vacs out the system, removes the dash, and pulls the entire heat/ac box out of the passenger side to get access to replace it, I heard a $1700 job. So you can either cut through the passenger wheelwell, or relocate the dam thing to a spot where you can get access, inside the van, pull the radio out to get your hand in behind the dash to route the hoses, drill through the firewall to pull in the vac line. This is the result of building a vehicle without leaving room to access parts that may fail in the future, face it, studies show buyers don't keep the vehicles past 5 years anyhow, and second owners are not a concern, they just build it to last for 100,000 miles.
That is crazy -They make work for their dealers one way or the other. Will def. relocate same & make my own vacuum resevoir out of 1-1/2" pvc pipe. I know that will hold up for a while. I'll mount it down there somewhere easy to access. I do hvac work for a living so I have all the tools,but why bother with it when it can & should be relocated. Thanks for the reply. Bill
They don't think about items like this, it isn't designed to be replaced or reached, as I said, the numbers tell manufactures that buyers don't keep their vehicles, built to last till replaced.
Just like to say thanks a lot to you guys for all this info and research - sorted out my malfunctioning controls on a 2000 E350 with the help of this thread and some bits and pieces I had lying around. It's working really well now - now I can start trying to work out why the AC itself isn't working. One step at a time!
When those vacuum chambers go bad just put in an after market one way check valve and route the line to the main feed to the control head. happy, happy, happy
hello I had the same problem with my van I cut a patch out of the inner fender and found the 3inch long piece of vaccum hose going to the vaccum can to the directional valve had just fell off. .35 cents later problem solved. they couldn't have put it in a worse spot.
My '05 E350 had the vacuum problem. I did the bypass.
I took the old vacuum line apart at the windshield connector and put in a new check valve (from autoparts store @ ~$4).
I then jerked out the old vacuum line from the firewall inside the passenger foot area. I left enough at the inside end for connections and cut off the rest. I ran a coat-hanger back into the hole and wiggled/pushed it until I could find it under the hood.
I then attached a piece of fish tank hose (it's all I had at the time) to the coat-hanger and pulled it through from under the hood. I attached the hood end to the check valve.
On the inside end of the new hose I put a "T" for the vacuum tank. I'm not sure what size PVC I used but it tucked up nicely above the plastic housing under the dash using only a cable tie.
Then connect the fish tank hose to the open end of the one I pulled out and we're in business.
This is basically the same fix as mentioned above, except there's no no holes to drill you just use original hole with a new hose.
And DON'T use fish tank hose. If you look at the first pic, you can see it has collapsed from the vacuum. It still works fine but it takes about 10 seconds when the van is started in the morning.
I have vacuum hose from a wound vac, it's setup for a lot of negative pressure, same inside diameter, but the outside almost looks like fuel line. LoL
So the red hose is running through the loom at the hood, shouldn't be difficult to handle, you go from there to the firewall, why not use the tubing that run through there?
06-05-2014, 02:33 PM
