heat comes out of vents when vents are off

[83countrysquire]

anywhere i can get this can brand new?

[Tiggie]

I've got the same problems, and no vacuum leaks anymore. Pretty much any ATC problem, my wagon has:
- Fan Speed: low and high only
- Air out of the defrost during load, temp increase
- Hot Air out of all HVAC exits during load (even with system OFF)
- No temperature control (will burn you up or freeze you, usually the opposite of what you want)

I think my problem stem from someone replacing the heater core in the past and screwing up the vacuum line routing, along with probably a bad ATC sensor.

I got fed up last week with it and removed the ATC servo motor, and manually locked the blend door in the hot position (for winter). Yeah, I have heat all the time, but that's better than none (especially when it gets to 0 degrees on vinyl seats). My factory engine block heater works, though!

ATC just sucks in my experience. If I was gonna keep a box for long term and it came with ATC, it'd be getting an non-ATC conversion very quickly.

[87_crown_vic]

i like the ATC. never had a problem with them.

[gadget73]

anywhere i can get this can brand new?

friendly neighborhood Ford dealer can get you one for the bargain price of about $28, or at least thats what I paid for mine 2 years ago.

[gadget73]

[QUOTE=Tiggie;279882]I've got the same problems, and no vacuum leaks anymore. Pretty much any ATC problem, my wagon has:
- Fan Speed: low and high only
[quote]
switch or the fan resistor, or the connection at the fan resistor. its under the hood, sort of behind the valve cover on the pass side.

- Air out of the defrost during load, temp increase

still got a leak in the atc system somewhere. Have to start messing with the vacuum pump. Mine was leaking at the soup can and the thermal blower lockout piece of sh*t.

- Hot Air out of all HVAC exits during load (even with system OFF)

the foam seals on the air doors are leaky. Not much to be done about this short of pulling the entire plenum and blend door assembly apart and rebuilding it. Illustrations suggest total mess. Mine does this a little bit too, I don't feel ambitious enough to rip it all down, its a fairly minor problem.

- No temperature control (will burn you up or freeze you, usually the opposite of what you want)

interior temperature sensor is bad. Its the blue thing above the glovebox. The diapgrams get funky in there and they go hot/cold, shift randomly, or you won't get heat. Replace it and it should mostly stabilize, though if there is a vacuum leak its still going to act really stupid.

ATC just sucks in my experience. If I was gonna keep a box for long term and it came with ATC, it'd be getting an non-ATC conversion very quickly.

Its really not that bad, its just 20 years old and has stupid problems. 90% of the time, the problems are either a vacuum leak, the TBL failing and causing the floor position to not work, or the interior temp sensor.

I went through all this on my car, the shifting air, shifting heat, random hot/cold from the bad sensor, bad soup cap, exploded TBL. I threw the TBL out, sealed it's vacuum lines (which was actually my shifting air problem), jumped the electrical together to get floor working, new soup can, new sensor, and it works extremely well now.

I did find also that it really dislikes having that lever screwed with too much. Its much happier if set to 70-75 and left there in the winter. Moving it from full hot to colder usually makes it go to freezing air out of the vents till it stabilizes again. Most of the winter mine stays set to about 72, fan in auto, and the selector in floor or mix.

[RobClark]

The huge value of this site

As some of you know - I am at the other end of the earth (Australia) with a car that was never sold or serviced here ('86 Towncar).

This WWW site is absolutely invaluable to me.

Case in point:
- driving this week and discover vent air heats up when pushing harder on accelerator
- search this www site. As expected - I am not the first to have this problem.
- I have kinda worked out that I would check out the vacuum system first - but that is a lot easier said than done.
- But - and here is the VALUE - this thread confirmed that a vacuum leak explained my problems, and one idea is to turn off the engine and listen for hissing.
- BINGO! As they say the rest is history. (10 minute repair).

You guys are great!

[86VickyLX]

How'd you get a Towncar down there in Australia?

[RobClark]

Here is the story

http://www.grandmarq.net/vb/showpost.php?p=99437&postcount=3

[86VickyLX]

Wow thanks. Do you have any interior pics of the car?

[Chris84]

wow... that conversion is fabulous!


ehm... how about the vavle for the heater?
can i buy it?

greetings
chris

[86VickyLX]

I would think so. Either get it from Ford or get it from someone here on GMN.

[Chris84]

my ford dealer says "180$"... that sounds a little too much, doesn´t it?

[gadget73]

for a part to fit a 20 year old car, and given that you're in Europe, its probably not that bad. If it were mine, I'd be hitting the junkyard but I guess thats not practical for you there. Post in the classifieds, a wanted to buy ad. Hopefully one of the folks from here that can get to the yards from time to time can pick one up for you. Scott (Lincolnmania) may have one as well, I know there are a couple climate control units sitting around up there but I don't know what exactly they are from.

[over2tonsofFun]

I had the same problems with my 89 CV. I would up replacing my hole controls with a standard and axing the ATC. The ATC isn't having any problems in my town car ( that the wife has said) I may just replace the coffee can since it is almost 20 years old. I have access to a vacuum reservoir out of a 96 Explorer( my limited I am scrapping) The plastic ball type that I may use in the TC, plus it will be easy to hide.

Tim