Heater blowing cold air !!!

[Anonymous]

93 MTX heater blowing cold air ...the blower motor is strong but it's not blowing any heat ...it's starting to get too cold in the morning for this anybody else familiar with this problem ?

 

[rubydist]

There are several candidates: blend door actuator, blend door itself, the etac head unit could be bad, the heater core could be plugged, etc.

 

[Toolman]

BDA is my guess.

 

[luigisho]

Agree BDA has been the highest failure rate posted over they years. No guarantee but best place to start looking. Ruby posted the most logical grouping to go after and I hope for your sake it's not the heater core. That's a job

 

[Anonymous]

There are several candidates: blend door actuator, blend door itself, the etac head unit could be bad, the heater core could be plugged, etc.

How do you check the BDA? And get access to ?

 

[luigisho]

I haven't done an EATC self test since I owned a GenIII a long time ago. Is this something that would help pinpoint bda vs blend door? Looks like anyway you slice it you may have to remove or loosen the dash enough to maneuver it to remove any of this stuff.

https://shoforum.com/index.php?threads/blend-door-actuator.103953/

https://shoforum.com/index.php?threads/how-to-remove-your-dash.44695/

https://www.justanswer.com/ford/2qcn1-1995-taurus-sho-blows-cold-air-no-heat.html

https://www.justanswer.com/ford/0d0la-heater-control-valve-located.html

 

[Toolman]

I'm looking for the thread that shows you how to manually access your blend door. My BDA is bad, and I'm in no way interested in removing my dash.

 

[luigisho]

If you find a shortcut please post. The vacuum hoses go through there so maybe removing the EATC or glove box if it's closer to that side? Been a while since I dug around behind the dash on the pre 96 cars

 

[itwonder]

I concur with BDA. However, they often get sticky long before failing completely. So run the EATC test a few times, and change the EATC from cold to hot temperature settings a few times, and turn it off and on. Try this at different times, especially after driving the car and/or parking in the hot sun which will loosen the old grease in the actuator. Be patient; try for a few days, if necessary. If you are lucky, it will move over to the heat side. Once it moves, you can drop the glovebox and look for a connector (see old posts, but I recall it is white in color) that you can unplug to freeze its position.

 

[Anonymous]

I concur with BDA. However, they often get sticky long before failing completely. So run the EATC test a few times, and change the EATC from cold to hot temperature settings a few times, and turn it off and on. Try this at different times, especially after driving the car and/or parking in the hot sun which will loosen the old grease in the actuator. Be patient; try for a few days, if necessary. If you are lucky, it will move over to the heat side. Once it moves, you can drop the glovebox and look for a connector (see old posts, but I recall it is white in color) that you can unplug to freeze its position.

What is the EATC ?don't mind me asking

 

[SHOdded]

Electronic Automatic Temperature Control

 

[zoomlater]

The control unit on the center of your dash (the one with the broken push buttons unless you have been really careful)

 

[Anonymous]

The control unit on the center of your dash (the one with the broken push buttons unless you have been really careful)

Oh ok the climate control panel

 

[Anonymous]

I concur with BDA. However, they often get sticky long before failing completely. So run the EATC test a few times, and change the EATC from cold to hot temperature settings a few times, and turn it off and on. Try this at different times, especially after driving the car and/or parking in the hot sun which will loosen the old grease in the actuator. Be patient; try for a few days, if necessary. If you are lucky, it will move over to the heat side. Once it moves, you can drop the glovebox and look for a connector (see old posts, but I recall it is white in color) that you can unplug to freeze its position.

So push the blue button down to the lowest temp and and red button to the highest ? And cycle that a few times ?

 

[luigisho]

here's a self test procedure
https://www.justanswer.com/ford/0jict-currently-1993-ford-taurus-sho-just-recently.html

 

[Bryan]

Umm I though that door when it fails sticks into the defrost position. Also don't forget no heat can also be a engine issue too. Your heat is part of your cooling system. Meaning it's a pressurized system and if there are any leaks in that system it will struggle to get heat into the car. Check and make sure you are not running low on coolant as well. Also outside the lines running into the heater core could be clogged preventing coolant to get to the heater core as well.

 

[rubydist]

Bryan, when there is no vacuum to the blend door actuator, it is in the defrost position. However, if the vacuum is working and the eatc or bda is bad, it can stick anywhere, including the full cold position.

 

[Bryan]

Bryan, when there is no vacuum to the blend door actuator, it is in the defrost position. However, if the vacuum is working and the eatc or bda is bad, it can stick anywhere, including the full cold position.

Okay. Was thinking these things had a failsafe that in the case it did fail it would at least default to defrost so you could still defrost and defog your windshield. Sucks that only way to get to it is to pull the dash out.

 

[Anonymous]

Okay. Was thinking these things had a failsafe that in the case it did fail it would at least default to defrost so you could still defrost and defog your windshield. Sucks that only way to get to it is to pull the dash out.

I was able to drop the glove box and switch the door by manually moving the actuator either way hot or cold position it's blowing cool air

 

[rubydist]

First, make sure you were moving the correct actuator - there is the blend door actuator (the one you needed for this experiment) and the diverter (which directs air to defrost, floor, vents, etc.)

If you moved the blend door with no hot air coming out no matter what, that suggests that the problem is the heater core is plugged or not getting warm water from the engine for some reason. In that case, make sure the hoses are not crimped or collapsed. Most likely that is a plugged heater core.