Ford Expedition

(Fixed with regular old packaging tape)

First off, the leak is due to water getting inside the air conditioner's air intake. Water runs down the passenger side windshield and flows between the windshield and the crowl (the crowl is the big flat plastic seal connected to the bottom of the windshield). Therefore, Ford put in a gutter on the bottom-side of the crowl that is supposed to collect this water and move it elsewhere to a safe place.

The leak occurs because this gutter doesn't have a big enough lip on it to keep water from flowing over the gutter (similar to how a bent-down rooftop gutter would overflow when it rains). This water flows into the air conditioner's air intake, which is located directly beneath the crowl. Ford should have fixed this problem! They've had six generations or more cars with this same problem.

Instead of fixing this gutter (by adding a bigger lip on it), I decided to start with the easier route of covering half of the air intake with packaging tape. To do this, you need to lift up the hood of the car and lift up the crowl. There are 3 clips on the crowl that need to be unclipped and you can lift up the crowl afterwards (with a bit of wiggling) at least enough where you can get your arm underneath it.

Once you have the crowl up enough, you will see the air intake covered by a grating. I simply cleaned this surface and placed packaging tape over half of the grating (the half that is towards the center of the car). You need to make sure that the tape covers the grating and the grating's housing so that there are no gaps such that water can still flow into the air intake. I actually took out the entire housing so that it would be easier to clean and get to, but this is a little bit difficult and requires a wrench.

Also, I took a cheap plastic mechanical pencil (or some rod) and taped that down the center of the grating so that this would provide a lip so that water cannot get from the taped half of the grating to the untaped half of the grating. This might not be necessary, but easy enough to do.

We had heavy rains and I lifted up the crowl to see if my rigged-up fix actually worked and it worked much better than expected.

Most vehicle that have this problem, and being a ford man, it's your heater core! What's a heater core? In laymen terms, is't a miniture radiator that water come's from your main radiator cycles through the engine and in to your heater core and back through the radiator. You know when it's winter and it's cold and you turn on the heat inside the car, well that's how you get heat from the heater core. Either it's a loose hose connection ( doubt it) or you need to replace the heater core and that's not fun. That's where your problem is and you need to replace it now or flood the floor board of your car.

Keo

During the summer, it is NOT the heater core unless your car is a sauna. If it is only on the passenger side, I'll also bet it only happens when the air conditioner runs. Look under the car around the firewall on the passenger side for a small tube hanging down. This will be the drain for condensation on the AC. Carefully poke a wire up this hose to clear the blockage.

All good information but I had the identical problem, and it could be this. One morning after it had rained I had a puddle of water on the front passenger floor. I traced the water entry up to the openings where the heat would come out. First I thought it was the heater core or something but the water was clear, and it had rained. Then I thought it was the windshield as I had heard about some windshield seal problems. So the next Saturday I took the trim piece off which is just below the wiper on the passenger side to give it a look. When that was off I could see a cowl that is the air inlet for the heat and a/c and could look down and see the fan. So I next took a few cups of water and poured it around the cowl where the rainwater would normally flow and lo and behold, it started to drip into the fan area. The cowl was not sealed properly to the metal shroud that it was attached too. It was pretty easy to remove the two nuts and because the rubber gasket was still in good shape, I kept that and put a small bead of silicone on the gasket, cleaned the mating surface and put it back together. Problem solved for free in a couple of hours.

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Throttle Position Sensor (TPS) is basically a rheostat. Here is how Merriam Webster defines it: ; Main Entry: : rheo·stat ; Pronunciation: : \ˈrē-ə-ˌstat\ ; Function: : noun ; Date: : 1843 : a resistor for regulating a current by means of variable resistances

Basically, the TPS offers variable resistance depending on the winding or unwinding of its actuator. When you goose the throttle, or take your foot off the gas, the TPS tells your vehicle's computer where the throttle is. Look under your hood at your fuel rail or throttle body. on one side you will see the terminus of the throttle cable and the cam around which the cable is wound. Directly on the opposite side of the throttle body from here, you will see the TPS.

did you look at your bulbs

LEAK TESTING A FORD/LINCOLN AIR SUSPENSION SYSTEM

PRINTER FRIENDLY

The Ford shop manual recommends performing a soapy water solution for air suspension leak testing. While this is the absolute sure-fire way to leak test, if you don't have the right equipment and/or experience, the results of your test may not be conclusive. The equipment I'm speaking of is not the soapy water solution, but more the vehicle lifting equipment needed to allow you to get under the car and see most of the air spring/strut...."WHILE THE WEIGHT OF THE CAR IS ON THE AIR SPRINGS/STRUTS". An example of this would be a front end rack. The kind of rack that is used to align a vehicle and that the technician has to drive the car up onto. If the rear of the car is on the ground, you can't safely get under it to visibly see all around the air spring/strut. Using a front end rack, you can lift the vehicle up in the air and safely see the entire rubber bladder while performing the test. The problem is, most novice mechanics don't have access to a front end rack. With that being said, I have a much easier and safer approach to leak testing. I will explain this later on, but first I want to explain a few things.

First of all, the rubber used on the air spring/strut gets dry rotted mostly on the fold of the rubber, or where the rubber folds around on the bottom. This folded area of the rubber gets the blunt of the punishment and dry rots at a much faster rate than the rest of the rubber. Because this area dry rots faster than the rest, this is where your leak is going to be 99.9% of the time.

The reason the air spring/strut will leak sometime and not others, has allot to do with temperature and most importantly, where the fold of the rubber is. The area of the rubber that's on the fold, will change with vehicle height. In other words, the fold of the rubber will be in a different area while the car is being driven (city height) as opposed to when it is sitting still (vented or parked height). If the dry rotted area of the rubber is "On the Fold", this will open up any cracks in the rubber and allow air to escape.

Keep in mind that ALL the air springs/struts have their own solenoid. The solenoid acts as a gate for air. No air should go in or out unless the solenoid is opened up by the module. By turning the suspension switch off, your disabling the solenoids, thus no air should escape....unless of course theres a leak.

THE "EASY WAY" TO FIND A LEAK

By far, the easiest way to test for a leak, is to allow the car to vent down after shutting off the engine and opening and closing the door.

IT IS VERY IMPORTANT TO MAKE SURE THE CAR HAS LOWERED PRIOR TO TURNING THE SUSPENSION SWITCH OFF, OR THE TEST WON'T BE ACCURATE!

If nothing else, wait 5 minutes after you turn the ignition off...then turn the suspension switch off. The car should have vented by then.

After this, turn the suspension switch off and measure the height of the 4 corners of the car with a tape measure and write it down.

Now drive the vehicle for a few days.

If the vehicle has a leak, the car should go down after driving.

NOTE: Depending on the severity of the leak, it may take more than one day to leak down. This is the case more times than you would think.

By all means, if the car goes down after 10 minutes of driving, turn the switch back and resume your journey. You have answered your question.

Want to replace the strut yourself? Click HERE for instructions.

COULD IT BE JUST A SOLENOID LEAK?

Its been my experience as a former Ford/Lincoln factory trained and certified technician, that if the solenoid has never been removed before, most likely the leak isn't from the o-rings that seal the solenoid to the air spring/strut. Now if the solenoid had EVER been removed before, the o-rings should have been replaced at that time. If you have an old o-ring that has never seen the light of day and all of the sudden, after 10 years of being cooped up, it is released from tension, it will expand. If reused, it WILL eventually cause a leak . It might take a day, a month, or even a year, but it WILL leak at some time down the road.

In other words, if you replace your air springs, make sure you replace the 2 x o-rings that seal the solenoid to the air spring/strut. If you don't, its not a matter of "IF" it will leak, but more like "WHEN". It would be in your best interest to also replace the little o-ring that seals the air line to the solenoid at the same time. Because this o-ring is AFTER the actual sealing part of the solenoid, if this o-ring leaks, it will only affect the operation of the system while the solenoid is opened, like when the module is making a height adjustment. Not while sitting overnight!

AIR SUSPENSION PARTS - AIR SUSPENSION HELP

We offer parts for factory air suspension equipped vehicles and/or coil spring conversion kits for these models:

Lincoln Mark VII, Lincoln Mark VIII, Lincoln Town Car, Ford Crown Victoria, Mercury Marquis, Ford Expedition, Lincoln Navigator, '88-'94 Lincoln Continental, '95 & '96 Continental, Lexus, Cadillac, Subaru, Chrysler, Range Rover

MAILING ADDRESS

AMERICAN AIR SUSPENSION

P.O. BOX 336

Del Rio,TN. 37727

423-487-4321

PRIVATE POLICY

DO THIS ONLY ON EMERGENCIES!!

You should CAREFULLY get under the SUV, close to where the spare is supposed to be (the rear part of the vehicle) and then look for the plastic covered (or not) steel wire that pulleys the spare down and cut it.

BE EXTREMELY CAREFUL because just right after you do this the spare tire will fall down to the floor.

Obviously i wouldn't recommend doing this if its not an emergency, because the levering system that rolls the spare tire up and down will be screwed after you do this and you would need to replace it in order to get it functional again.

If its not an emergency then do this.

Go to the nearest Pep boys and ask anyone there what to do. They will be able to fix it up or to replace the whole system in no time.

You do not listen to the idiot up above, you do not cut anything. You take the jack arm from under the hood and above the license plate there is a hole where you insert jack arm and turn.