Hi guys. I am looking and have been reading about the PATS system, keys, etc. I do have keys with chips et all, but, the antenna part on my 98 Expy broke and is not detecting the keys.
I am told the coil within the ring is damaged...

Let me say I am located in Ecuador and purchasing a used replacement and shipping it here etc is going to take days to weeks and in the meantime the car will not start.
So what I would need to find if there is a way to bypass the antenna somehow and send a signal that is ok to go ahead and start. In the meantime I have an entrepreneurial locksmith trying to fix the antenna.. maybe.

Details : 98 Expy Eddie Bauer 4WD.. Part to replace if I can find one would be the ring piece, but I guess I have to buy the whole F6ZF-15607-BA (around $110 used in the USA) and figure out a way to get it to Ecuador...

I saw mentions of bypass boxes that can be programmed. I would need a box that I can program and then unhook the antenna and have the box send the code always...?? Also, most of the threads are quite old and links to bypass units etc do not work... :-(

 

Sorry, none of those ideas will work. You need a replacement transceiver ring.

 

Well, have found no way to bypass. There seem to be some modules that can be programmed to bypass by programming them like an added key. But the antenna is involved in all of them even just to program them. The locksmith was trying to rebuild the coil of the antenna but did not seem to succeed.

I purchased a replacement antenna/transceiver (used) from the USA and a friend is flying it back to Ecuador tomorrow. In the meantime, the car has been sitting at the shop for a week as there is no way to make it run if it won't detect the key. This concerns me deeply. As Ford stops making parts for our older models, will the car just come to a stop due to computer/PATS parts deteriorating and no replacements been available? Already some internal rim parts are hard to find and only got lucky at junkyards as these are plastic and hard to find in good shape. :-(

And I should mention, there are no junkyards here in Ecuador. They seem to be kind of illegal.. I am still investigating this issue. I found a lot of older F150 and Explorers that might share some of the parts with the Expy, but hard to find and even harder to get parts off them. I recently found a full 98 Expy for sale that was crashed, the whole driver front end destroyed, and they still wanted $8500 for it... :-O

 

Almost any car or truck older than 7-10 years old is going to run into issues with certain replacement parts no longer stocked by the dealers for that manufacturer. Owners of older vehicles have to resort to the aftermarket (if any) or used parts to keep them on the road or else they scrap them. That's just the way it is.

Living in a part of the world far separated from the original source of the vehicle makes it even harder.

It's just a fact of automotive life, you just have to deal with it. Good luck.

 

I'm sure you can hack a new antenna if push came to shove. It's nothing more than a coil of wire, get the same gauge of wire and roughly the same number of turns and it should work. Only problem is, the original is potted so figuring out how many turns isn't easy. Might even be able to use a coil from another car if one is found with something similar, and just wire it up to the connector that fits in the Ford harness. In the end, when no parts can be found for older cars which uses electronics to run, the only solution is to find alternatives that won't be a direct fit. Either that, or scrap it and move on. Though it seems to be a big shame to scrap an otherwise fully working car, just because of one seemingly trivial electronic part that gave up the goose and prevents it from running...