i have a 96 contour w/2.0 . the cooling fan doesn't turn on and the temp gauge does not work. i jumped the relay in the main fuse box under the hood and the fan comes on , both low and high . and everything seems to check out fine . anyone know what i should try next other than beating it with my sledge hammer .

 

I spent a few minutes looking at wiring diagrams for sensors and circuits and such. It looks like there are two ECT sensors. One for the PCM which controls cooling fan operation and another specifically for the temp gauge. If you're sure you checked the relays and they're good, (there's 2, high speed and low speed), then you may just be looking at 2 bad ECT sensors. It's odd that fans and temp gauge both don't work. Have you pulled the sensors to see if they're all gunked up or anything? Are you sure the coolant is topped off? Sensors don't read steam very well. If there's not water at the sensors, they don't tend to register right.

There's also a cooling fan resistor after the low speed relay to limit voltage/slow fan. Since you jumped the relays and both high and low speed worked, I'd leave that out as a culprit.

If you have access to a scan tool, it would be interesting to see whether or not the PCM is recieving accurate information from the ECT sensor. If it is, then you'd be looking at either a bad PCM or a break in the wires between the pcm and the relays.

Good luck with this problem. With the right equipment it would be easy to figure out, but as it stands I'm kinda just throwing out ideas.

 

I have a similar problem with my 2.5L duratec 96 contour.
Well my gauge works, but my fans don't. When I jumped both relay sockets, Only the high went on..not the low..So I was thinking the resistor was the culprit. I removed the resistor and it has no signs of breakage or crud on it (see pic). Some said that even though it looks alright doesn't mean its holding a circuit. So when I get home I'll meter test it to see if it holds a circuit. The other thing I can think of is bad grounds. I'll report back my findings.