Happy Halloween! Fixing the Fan Speed Control

Boo!

The Freestyle has passed an important milestone in my household.  Not in dollars spent or miles driven, something more substantial.  My wife likes the car enough to start decorating it.  At first, she refused to be a passenger, in fear of an immediate breakdown or immolation (I feel the need to point out I spelled that word correctly the first try), but after seeing it not stranding me the last few months, I think she's warming up to our newest car -- plus, I think it keeps me in the garage and out of her hair.  I'm told this car is "cooler" than our minivan; which I don't understand because our minivan has a TV.

Fan Control

I'm on to fixing the AC system and part of the job is fixing something that didn't work from day one of my ownership experience: the fan speed control.  The controls offered two options: nothing or high.  Not a big deal, maybe an annoyance at the most.  Once the AC has been recharged (I've replaced all of the parts, just recharging the system remains!) it will be nice to have some control; same for the heat in the looming winter.

Replacing the part was easy enough.  On the passenger's side, slide the seat all the way back to give yourself room to work.  Then, remove a panel covering the fan by pulling out two plastic rivets:

The part in question can be found close to the firewall and center console.  Remove the wiring connector, spin out the 8mm screws.  The part will just fall out.

There's not much clearance and I found the wiring kept getting in my way, I tucked it into the center console.  Insert the new part, making sure it's oriented with the connector release facing you, the connector has some pegs to ensure a correct fit -- there's two screws and two alignment pegs -- twist things back up to "hand tight" and that's about it.  The wiring connector will fit only one direction and returning the protective cover involves pushing the plastic retainers back into place. Done!

The malfunctioning fan is a common failure, the part at fault being the fan speed resistor, which regulates the amount of electricity to the fan, which then controls how fast the fan spins.  This this part works by restricting the flow of electricity, that extra energy become heat, explaining why this component can be found close to the fan it controls, as that provides some cooling.  In this part of the world, something hot will condense the moisture out of the air, which probably contributes to the part's demise.

Old part, note bubbling

Coating the part with some moisture-resistant material performs the important job of keeping wiring on the part from making contact in such a way a short-circuit occurs, which looks like what happened on the failed part.  Notice the bubbling close to the connector, it looks like some water worked its way under the coating; guessing the heating and cooling cycles resulted in the coating separating from the sub-strait thus spoiling the circuitry.

A Small Find

Found the Owner's Manual!

When I removed the panel covering the fan, out fell the original owner's manual for the car and a black Aldi job application.  I'm guessing the book fell from an overloaded glove compartment above.  For the first time I think ever, I needed to consult the owner's manual to find the neutral override switch and needed to use Ford's (excellent) on-line manual service.  While I might never look at it again, It's nice having the owner's manual for completeness's sake.  I'll give the job application to my youngest kid so nothing goes to waste.

Seat Handle

My Freestyle came with a broken seat recliner handle. The seat has motors to move it fore and aft, but reclining the seat is a manual affair in my trim level and the handle that did this was broken.  The recline of the seat was a bit more than I would have liked, I could have lived with it had I no choice, but I did have a spare $17 to put into additional driver comfort.

This seemed to be an easy fix -- get a new handle, push onto axle, call it a day.  Getting the new handle was the slightly more expensive than anticipated, as I couldn't find an after-market part via mail order that I knew would fit.  Even "hassle free" mail order returns seem to have some level of hassle.  

I would need to contact a Ford parts dealer, so I used my standby Tasca Auto Parts. Plugged in my VIN and a few clicks later, my order was placed.  A few days later, the part arrived at my door and I was even surprised the color matched.  Must have been color information encoded in the VIN, as I didn't make a color selection when picking the part.  I wouldn't have fussed about the color as long as it worked, but it's nice that it matches.

Worth noting that bag says "Majority Content made in USA".  Considering the bag contains one plastic, injection moulded part, I'm wondering what minority content was from outside the good-ol-USA.  This wording was probably carefully selected as a result several meetings at the legal department whose job it was to approve what appears on product packaging.

Here's the old and new parts.  The part broke in a predictable place given how it's used.  Installation was super easy, line-up the handle so the key was oriented correctly and press.  That's it.  I'm now much more comfy as I head down the road.

Dead battery

While in my garage for a few days, I left the map lights on in the car.  The result: a dead battery.  Not just a "sort of dead battery" that has enough current to run some of the electronics in the car, it was a "really dead battery" that didn't have enough juice to do much of anything.

Push then Jump

The Freestyle was in the garage, head first and my jumper cables couldn't reach from my running car to the dead battery.  To get the Freestyle within jumper cable range, I needed to push it out of the garage, which meant I needed to put the car in neutral.  For your safety (no sarcasm, this is a great safety feature), cars include an interlock between the brake and shifter, requiring your foot on the brake before you can shift into gear.  The interlock is a switch and a solenoid on the shifter to release a pin to allow the shifter to move -- a classic design requiring electricity to work, and, as it happens, my car was absent enough electrons to do the job. 

Sure, disassemble the dashboard

No problem!  Cars include an override for just this event.  Most of the time, it's next to the shifter accessible with a valet key or screwdriver, kept under a little panel held in place by coffee and Cheetos residue.  After searching, and searching, I resorted to an act of true desperation: I read the manual (gasp!).  Whereupon I found instructions on page 198 that seemed to be telling me to disassemble the center console.  Really?  Yes.

Here's what I needed to do.  Took about 15 minutes, about 14 minutes longer than it should have.

1. Safety
Before you start, belt and suspenders!  Apply the parking brake and put a chock on both sides of a wheel.  This keeps the car from drifting forwards or backwards.  This is the wrong time to discover the slope of your garage/driveway faces the house/pool/orphanage as two tons of car rolls about uncontrolled.  If stuck on an incline, this is one of the times I'd recommend seeking professional assistance. Also, I feel the need to point out once the car starts rolling, just get out of the way, you're not going to stop it, you'll just get run over.

2. Removing a trim panel from around the shifter
For this job, I deployed my Harbor Freight nylon prying tools.  There's a set for just interior trim, but the "all purpose" set live up to their name.  

3. Removing the console (use two hands, pull upwards!)
Looks dirty under there.  I also found some receipts and a debit card hiding in this area. Not really sure how these got to their final resting spot, there's not much of a gap between the console and the rest of the dashboard.  But stuff has a habit of getting where it doesn't belong.

 

A bunch of plastic clips like what you see below hold the center console in place, they look like they're designed to tolerate occasional removal, so somebody in the depths of the engineering department expected this to happen over the life of the car, or maybe this is what they had in the CAD system's collection of fasteners and the valued engineering resource responsible for this part just did a cut/paste before heading out to lunch.

4. Loosening a screw to remove a safety cover over the switch, press button
The safety cover with a screw underneath the center console seems like the result of some regulation, or lawsuit, or maybe I'm witnessing some serious over-engineering.

There's the button!  Just press while also pressing the release on the gear shifter and we're in neutral.  From the pictures, you might notice it being a bit dirty, this picture fully documents the crud hiding in the center console gear shift:

I sprayed with liberal mounts of LA's Totally Awesome Cleaner I used for the rest of the interior and put my best efforts into making this cleaner.  

Off we go

Removed wheel blocks and pushed car out of the garage after releasing the parking brake.  This is a two person job, have somebody sitting in the car ready to press the brakes. Jumping the car was uneventful.  (Yes, I was very careful to attach the last cable far away from the dead battery.)  Re-assembly didn't require much effort and my car's just a little bit cleaner as well. Might want to stash a cheap Phillips head screwdriver in the glove compartment, just in case you need to do this in the field.