Right,

Spent an hour or so checking all of the wiring this evening to and from the switch and risistor against the wiring diagrams - all checked out fine. All point to a faulty blower resistor which is very strange as it is brand new supplied by ford main dealer on monday morning and even after first fitting the resister the blower never worked on settings 1-3 and A/C light goes out on setting 4.

On examination of the new resister - no signs of overheating, however when I checked with a multimeter I was able to conclude that there was no connection accross the component spot welded to two small terminals at the end the resistor itself, I assum this to be some sort of temp overload diode. As soon as I bypassed the doide, as a test, with the resistor connected to the car and the ignition on, the blower came to life on all settings and the A/C light was on on setting 4. After about 2 mins the whole resistor got very hot indeed although the actual terminals to the connector did not apear to get hot even after 5 mins of maintaining the short - no fuses popped.

Questions:

1. Is it really possible that the resistor sold to me by ford was faulty - anyone heard of this?

2. Is it normal that the risistor gets very hot, and was the test I did to bypass the resistor safety diode valid or even sensible?

3. When I purchase a new resistor should I check for a connection between the terminals at the end of the resistor? or is this not a valid test!