The rear air in my 2002 E150 has stopped blowing cold air from the ceiling vents. It will only blow heated air from the floor vents even when the control is set to "AC". This happened once before when the van was about a month old. Ford replaced the entire rear unit under warranty and the cost was listed as $1200.

I am sure that this is a vent door problem in the rear unit. How do I gain access to the unit and is it possible to repair the door. I have seen posts here before about fixing the dash mixing door and I was hoping that a similar method will work for the rear air mixing door too.

The van is no longer under warranty.

Thanks.

 

I found and fixed the problem! The blend-door was not working and the default position is to send heat to the floor ducts.

The fix:

First I removed the driver side rear trim panels to gain access to the auxilliary heating/cooling unit. Then, I removed the blower motor from the unit so that I could see the blend-door. Next, I disconnected the vacuum hose from the blend-door vacuum motor and I applied vacuum to the motor. The motor was working fine but the blend door was broken. The door has a tab which protrudes far enough for the vacuum motor to connect to it. The vacuum motor pulls on that tab to change the door position. The tab was broken.

So, I cut out a piece of 1/16" steel and made a new tab. I did this by cutting the steel about 2" long and made it match the contours of the rib on the back of the blend door. The piece of steel follows along the rib and then extends out past the door edge to replace the broken tab.

Then, I bolted the tab to the vacuum motor shaft. I used a 10/32 bolt and lock nut for this.

The total repair cost me $0.48. When the dealer fixed it the first time in 2002, they replaced the whole auxilliary unit under warranty at a price recorded as $1300.

Ford does carry the blend-door but it costs $72.00.

P.S.

I did need to unbolt the the auxilliary unit from the van wall but I didn't need to connect anything. I was able to lift the forward edge of it about 2" and that was enough to give me clearance to remove the vacuum motor and blend door.

 

cool! thanks for posting the cure. My 92 E150 has this problem. Now I have a clue what I might do!

Thanks
Chris

 

Since the Ford dealer actually had the replacement blend-door in stock, I think this is probably a common issue with the vans. I also tend to think that the auxilliary unit in your '92 is probably identical to the one being used in the 2005 models.

If you do attempt the repair, you need to loosen the unit from the sidewall and then try to lift the forward edge up about an inch or so. This will give you the clearance needed to get a socket on the 1/4" hex bolt that mounts the blend door vacuum motor to the housing. After you slide the motor down and out, you can pull the blend door out. I had to flex the blend door slightly to get it past the wheel wheel but it was no big deal.

Before you start pulling out the door, remove the blower motor and look down in the blower housing at the door. Make sure the door tab is really broken.

For reference, the whole repair from start-to-finish including the part fabrication took me about 3 hours.

 

Great directions. I had the same problem and ended up just taping the door in the A/C position. Winter is not too long here, and my heater tubes back there were totally corroded out anyway. I no longer have rear heat, but that's OK. The kids can use a blanket.

 

Ford wants over 500 bucks for the heating tubes that run from the engine to the rear heater. When mine rust out, I will replace them with long runs of heater hose.

 

I cut the heater pipes just forward of the gas tank where there was good clearance and they were in good shape. Then I put an 18" peice of heater hose in and created a loop. I was able to eliminate the leak problem, and prevent a stagnant section of the pipes from corroding out. I may go back at some point and run hoses all the way to the back so I can have heat again. That does sound a lot like work though......

 

I have E150-MarkIII conversion with rear A/C and heat.
They have used rubber hoses all the way to the unit for both systems.
This heater/AC is not fitte all the way in the back, but 1 ft. behind the drivers seat.
So hose runs will do the job, and are used in the conversion industry.
Cor

 

Running heater hose all the way to the back is really easy. All I needed was the hose, some hose clamps, a couple of splices and some zip-ties.

Isaac

 

On my van, the heat exchanger is located just in front of the right rear fender well and it has the rubber hose setup. I will be removing this unit from the van so if anyone needs one, please let me know. It works fine, but until I remove it, I won't know in what kind of shape the exchanger is.