Time and time again at Athol Park Wreckers we have customers encountering problem with their, heater/ airconditioning system in their BA BF or FG ford Falcons. There are a number of faults that can occur in these vehicles including but no limited to:

  1. Heater mix door wont change temperature settings
  2. One side of the heater is cold and the other is hot and the other is cold
  3. Vehicle smells of coolant inside the passenger cabin and no heater working
  4. When Airconditioning is activated one side is cold the other side is warm

Symptom 1: heater mix door wont change temperature settings

This is a very common problem and the cause is most often either a fault HVAC module or in some instance a broken heater mix shaft.
It is possible with the Interior command centre removed from the dash to reach both hands down the heater vents and manipulate the shaft by hand, if it spins freely then the shaft is broken and needs replacing. This involves accessing the drivers side of the shaft and removing the “c” Clip an sliding the damaged shaft out then replacing it with another shaft.

If the shaft is not damaged the most common cause if failure of the HVAC Module and at Athol Park Wreckers we sell these modules recycled with a three month warranty for $95.00. These modules will on occasion require reprogramming but often if the battery is disconnected for 10 second the module will reset and work effectively. Please note that dual climate and single climate modules are the same but can be programmed to either setting and may need to be changed if for example a single climate him is fitted to a dual climate vehicle.

Symptom 2: One side of the heater is hot and the other is cold

most often the cause of this symptom is a blocked heater core, start and run the vehicle until warm and turn the heater on. Then carefully (ensuring you take necessary precautions to protect your safety) check the temperature of the heater inlet and outlet hoses located on the firewall in the engine bay of your BA BF or FG Falcon, all the pipes should be the same temperature, if one is hot and the other is cold to touch you more than likely have a blocked heater core that needs to be flushed or in some extreme cases replaced.

Symptom 3: This one appears a little more obvious that coolant smell you have detected will be accompanied by a wet passenger floor carpet and the odour will be overpowering, this indicates a failure of the heater core itself and it will need replacing.

Symptom 4: This is a classic symptom of low refrigerant fill. In the Ford Falcon Airconditioning systems when the vehicle does not have enough fill on occasions you will observe that one side of the system is very cold and the other is warm. Check the high side and low side refridgerant pressures and fill accordingly.

Athol Park Wreckers can conduct all these repairs on your behalf if you would like feel free to contact us on 088341 1122