I have a 1996 Contour with the 2.5L engine,auto trans, all options except heated seats, 70K miles. Had it since new.
Everything worked fine until all at once the heater fan (any speed) and A/C failed to operate, as did the directional signals. Lights, radio, emergency blinker, and everything else seems to work properly.
The following items checked out good:
All fuses in the Main and Aux boxes, even those that made no sense to check.
Flasher Relay R23 on the steering column.
Heater Blower relay R14 in the Aux box
Blower motor Resistor Pack
Circuit checks:
+12V not present at the blower Resistor Pack or the blower motor.
+12V present on ALL pins of R23.
Manually closing R23 has no effect on the non-operation directionals.
With the reading on K23 and not seeing any obvious common circuit between the blower and the directionals, I suspect an open ground connection somewhere. Since both blower and directional circuits use ground ??G20? as shown in the Haynes manual, it is my prime suspect. Can anyone tell me where that point that is or have any other ideas?
I am toying with running an external ground wire to see what happens.
The front rotors and pads all around were replaced by a shop that owed me some ??free? work shortly before the failures. I know the A/C worked immediately after the brake work, but they may have loosened something or put a wire in a spot where it could break. Not likely, but possible, I suppose.
Another piece of info is that the transmission lever parking lock solenoid is not operating (I have to push it aside manually through the hole provided). I think this may have been the case before, so I do not know if this is relevant. It has been hard to move the lever our of Park for a long time. However it is an electrical device, so I mention it.
Sorry for the bandwidth, but I wanted to give everyting I know - no surprises.
TIA Dan