ok.. the location of the air ride controller is in the trunk of the car. on left the inside of the left quarter panel (or near that location). dont confuse it with the amplifier for the radio, which is on the left wheel well.
rear height sensor is on passenger side of car. mounted to the chassis, with an arm that extends down to the suspension. its connected to one of the 'arms' that come from the center of the car to the where the strut attaches. The sensor arm connects to the suspension with a clip, and has been known to come undone.
Left front sensor is on left front suspension, mounted to chassis, with an arm that goes down to the lower control arm for the left front. Again, these arms are known to pop off occasionally.
I hate to talk bad about mechanics, but if yours tried to 'hot wire' the air compressor instead of checking for fuses first, I dont have anything good to say about him/her. I would almost suspect a bad controller if they in fact did try to 'hot wire' the compressor, because they may have caused damage to it in that manner. but the controllers are pretty stout beasts, so lets look elsewhere first.
One thing many people who get their lincs with air ride dont know about, you MUST turn off the air ride if you take ANY weight off the wheels (for tire changes, maintainance, ANYTHING that will lift the vehicles weight off ANY of the wheels). Failure to do so, can cause damage to any one of a number of components in the system.
here is a link to some diagnostics for the air suspension:
http://www.lincolnsonline.com/tech/00150_a.html
While for a Mark VII, they are very similar in operation to the Continental, and I think the self test will work on the Conti's as well.
Replacing the factory struts with ones that dont have the active damping control will not cause a problem with the air suspension, just that feature wont work. most people dont even know the continental has active damping, because its a totally passive system (to the driver, no selector switch or indicator). What the active damping system does is to stiffen or soften the shock damping depending on inputs from several sensors (speed, steering wheel (for rate of change), each ride height sensor, and probably a couple other too).
let us know some more info after some other tests have been done, and we can help ya out
