I am new here as I just purchased my 2008 ranger and wanted to see if anyone could provide any help or where to start with an issue I’m having. I have only put about 500 miles on the car small trips in around town and today drove from NJ to North Carolina. I noticed about an hour and a half into the trip that I could not direct the airflow on different selections it was producing hot air just not coming out anything but behind the console. I read that it might be a bad vacuum that
controls which I will look into. My big question is I went and looked under the hood midway through the trip and the hard lines coming out of the heating and cooling from the firewall were frozen over. I did have the heat on a majority of the time just to have some thing as temperatures are cold out. I’ve read that it could be low on refrigerant however is there anything else major that I should look at or try and troubleshoot this finding. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated as I am new here and hope to use this community often. Again thank you for any input. Attached is the picture of those frozen over lines which were found midway through the trip. The AC was never turned on only the heat.

 

Welcome to the forum

No, not a vacuum issue, the vacuum is used to control DIRECTION of air flow in the cab, i.e. defrost, panel, floor, but could never "stop" air flow from the fan, just controls where that flow is directed

As odd as it sounds you need to add "freon" to your AC system, its freezeing and blocking air flow, and it could be a blockage in "freon" line as well

AC systems all work the same way, for houses, cars, refrigerators and freezers
The compressor does just what it sounds like, it compresses a gas, same as an "air compressor"
This makes the gas very HOT very fast
When you allow the compressed gas to de-compress it gets COLD, very fast
If "freon" level is low it de-compresses TOO FAST so gets TOO COLD and freezes the lines, so no AC cooling any more
So the "freezing" could be a sign that "freon" is low, de-compressing too fast

This is seen in your pictures on external lines, what you can't see is the evaporator INSIDE the heater box in engine bay, its also frozen and the air from the blower/fan must pass thru the evaporator to get into the cab
So if evaporator freezes up then NO air flow from fan, or very little

If a vehicle has an AC system then its ALWAYS ON, except when Climate control is OFF, or on VENT(on some models), in any other selection AC is on, even when max HEAT is selected
The AC is used to DRY the air in the cab, so defrost works better and prevents musty smells in general


I would get the AC serviced, flushed and tested for leaks then refilled

 

Dash AC control on this era Explorer\Ranger\SportTrac is quirky.
On my 2001, A/C Compressor is ON (clutch engages+cycles) no matter COLD~HOT setting in these positions:
~ A/C Compressor ON at 3rdPositionLeft from OFF = DashVents A/C MAX
~ A/C Compressor ON at 2ndPositionLeft from OFF = DashVents A/C
~ A/C Compressor ON at 1stPositionRght from OFF = FeetVents+DashVents
~ A/C Compressor ON at 3rdPositionRght from OFF = FeetVents+DefrVents
~ A/C Compressor ON at 4thPositionRght from OFF = DefrVents
A/C Compressor is always OFF in these positions:
~ A/C Compressor OFF at 1stPositionLeft from OFF = DashVents
~ A/C Compressor OFF at 2ndPositionRght from OFF = FeetVents
So you can run with both HeaterCore HOT & Compressor ON at the same time.
In winter, I just use one of the last 2 positions, unless I need Defrost.
Weird\quirky logic, but I've gotten used to it.

 

@Emateer
You've still got FactoryOE HeaterHoses+Clamps & leaky plastic HeaterControlBallValve.
At 12-13years old, think about replacing all coolant hoses+clamps, system flush, & fresh 50/50?
On last replacing hoses, also replaced plastic HeaterControlBallValve FordMotorCraft# yg368
with VacuumToClose AllMetal HeaterControlPlugValve FourSeasonsFactoryAir# 74603.