1991 ford tempo temperature problem

when i drive the car it runs fine. but then it gets hot outside so i turn on the a/c while on the interstate then the temperature guage starts rising and it does not want to stop. so i turn it off before it red lines and it rapidly starts to cool down back to normal. its got the 2.3 ltr. please help....its too hot in florida to go with out a/c.

have you flushed the antifreeze lately?
changed the thermostat to an all season (180deg)?
the elec.fan(s) on the front of the vehicle operating while A/C on???

if all your maintenance is current;
have you checked ford or motorcraftservice.com website for possible service bulletins and/or recalls for your specific model concerning
overheating or climate control issues?

does the higher temp ONLY occur when the A/C is operating, and no other time? and if so, has this condition just recently started, or has it been slowly building, and now getting worse?


ctesla

It almost sounds like the fan isn't turning on. Try to investigate it a little further.

Leave the air off up all steep hills, and your better off with the wondows open in stop and go traffic and the air turned off

Most of the time on that car it is the electric cooling fan for the radiator isn't working. When the car gets hot, open the hood and see if the fan is running, leaving the car running and the ac on while checking it. Try and get it hot again with the ac off and check for the fan. I've heard of some tempo's having a problem with the cooling fan not coming on when the ac is on, and fine when the ac is off, but hadn't heard what anyone did to solve it.
There is also the possibility you have a similar problem that occurred to my son. He was way to closely following a friend that was in a big pickup down a gravel road. His so called friend kept punching his gas sending rocks into the ac cooling element/radiator and bent most of the fins flat. Until they were straightened out again, almost no air was passing through to the radiator.
As mentioned in a earlier reply, a flush and new coolant in the radiator is always helpful.

On all the newer cars that have electric fans the fan is supposed to come on when you turn the A.C. on,,the condensor in front of the radiator always gets hot ,,this is how your refrigerant gets cooled down. It passes threw the condensor before it turns to liquid and goes threw the liquid line to the evaporator,,so the manufacturers made the vehicles wiring as such that when you flip on the A.C. the fan comes on automatically.

other items to look at if the fan doesn't come on but the fan motor is good but gets no power when the car is running are the (fan control module) located under the driver side dash and the coolant temp switch. the way it works is power runs through the module which is two circuit one to turn on the fan when the a/c is on and the other circuit when the engine reaches operating temperature. the non-a/c dependent side also relies on the coolant temperature switch to close to ground the circuit so the fan turns on.