Has anyone had the experience of the A/C compressor coming on when the panel/floor selection is made on the ventilation controls? The A/C works fine, as does the heater, but when I select either the panel/floor or floor positions, the compressor comes on. Not good in winter! Any clues on this

 

AC will come on in the panel/floor position but not in the floor position.

 

Just to clarify..... the AC per se doesn't come on. The compressor will engage in all positions except floor or panel. Whether it cools the air or not depends on your temperature setting

 

I think the same thing....the compressor should not come on when in the panel, floor or panel+floor selections. My compressor (manual temp control) does not come on in PANEL. It DOES come on in the FLOOR and PANEL+FLOOR positions. I'm thinking part of the electronic control circuitry is hosed.

 

This is one of my biggest pet peeves about Ford. I want to control when the AC comes on. As said, the AC is on except for the -floor- or -panel- positions. I usually leave it on -floor/panel- with the temp. dial up a bit in the cooler months.

 

I had some free time this weekend and took care of the problem of the compressor turning on in the floor/panel setting.

It didn't take long to remove the selector swtich from the HVAC panel, what did take a while was trying to figure out how to remove the back cover of the selector switch without cracking the plastic.

The below link contains a before and after shot of the inside of the Selector switch showing the section of metal that needs to be removed to prevent the compressor from cycling in the floor/panel setting. The metal is very soft and I was able to remove it with a pair of tin snips.

https://www.f150online.com/galleries...w.cfm?num=3215

It took about 30 minutes from start to finish.

 

Excellent homework Ted'98! Nice weekend project you did. I will have to attack mine soon. Can't figure out why Ford did that. It wasn't that way on my 89 Ranger. Who would want cold air going to the floor. Many thanx for your investigation

 

This is similar to GM's bi-lvl setting. It is designed for weather when the sun is beating down on your upper body through the windows, yet your feet & legs are cold. It'll allow some heat to travel to your floor outlets while letting the cooler air come out of the dash outlets.

This is how it was explained to me & it made sense.

 

I would like to do something similiar to what Ted did except...

I want to wire in a small switch, so that I can manually turn-off (or prevent from turning on) the compressor. That way in the Summer time when its really hot out, you can flip the switch back to the 'on' position and have cold A/C air coming out of the Panel/Floor selection.

So does anyone know where and what color the wire is that I would need to put that switch in?

 

SteveB - you want to tap into the purple wire. I have my electric fan controller tied to that.