chin_k wrote: June 5th, 2020, 10:38 pm
I would save the old hose, and use it as rat bait instead of wasting perfectly good peanut butter!
This is crazy, but true. I have a 2000 Mustang (same year Ford as the Concourse) that uses the same vacuum tubing and rats ate through that one also, before I even had the Chinook. We have a lot of rats and other wildlife in our neighborhood, and keeping then out of our seldom-driven vehicles in the driveway is quite a challenge. Unfortunately, the tubing is more expensive than peanut butter.
I did #3 myself and it worked for a little while. Open passenger door and look on outside fender well near door hinge to find a rubber plug. I ran a new vaccume hose from under hood through that plug and hooked to a new vacume canister and tucked it under passenger side dash. It actually is STILL working but shortly after a few months I had nothing but hot air blowing from my vents. Took to my local mechanic and he had to tear into dash to replace a defrost / heat "door" that had broken. Cheap thing was made out of brittle plastic. but...it works great now!!
OK Then! After reading and re-reading your various posts with descriptions of how to do Fix #3 (bypass the old vacuum canister and check valve, and install new under passenger dash), and viewing a number of the Youtube videos out there (I found the one that Hea! attached on 10/10/2019 at the end of Clay's thread to be the most helpful), I decided to put on my Big Boy Underpants and tackle the job myself. So, I cancelled my scheduled appointment with my Ford mechanic, bought both the OEM Ford vacuum reservoir AND the after-market Dorman 47076 (along with appropriate hoses and connectors)--figuring I would see which one fit best up under the passenger dash area (keeping the other as a spare, just in case), and set to work on it yesterday.
I ended up routing the red vacuum line through an existing grommeted hole that I had previously made on the passenger side of the doghouse frame (for the 120v extension I have running from inside cab where my inverter is located to the front of the grill so I can charge our ebikes while they are mounted on the front bike rack), and then cut the black line coming in from the old vacuum reservoir and check valve (down near the floor on passenger side) so I could use the end of that that runs to the actuators up under the kidney cut out on top of the dash. I tried the Dorman 47076 with internal check valve first, and got it to fit nicely up under the passenger dash, left side near dog house bracket...even used bolt like in previously referenced video to secure it--though I did have to swap out the existing flanged bolt for one without a flange to fit the slot in the Dorman reservoir. Had I used the Ford OEM reservoir, the flange bolt would have been fine. Red vacuum line to larger port on the Dorman, black to the smaller port, and I was good to go...the Dorman ball fits and is hidden behind the metal plate that holds the passenger dash padding. Dog house was easy to both remove and replace...and Bob's Your Uncle! I just got back from a run on the 90 from Boston to Worcester and back, and the AC works in every mode, even with a heavy foot on the accelerator.
So, thank you all for your advice, guidance, and encouragement.
David
