Heater not hot

Given that it is also getting colder here, and therefore only need the heater again for months.

However, it is blowing cold air. I have already looked at whether there was a water flow from the outgoing side of the heater in the engine room. This was reasonable. However, with a warm engine, the output pipe is lukewarm. Not so hot as input.

There is a T junction where the water also goes to the LPG evaporator. I only noticed a cold heater last year when the temperature dropped even further (have a large radiator too and no thermo clutch fan).




So it seems to me in the manual switch (cable?) To sit behind the dashboard or that the heater is hidden.
I wonder if you can easily get to this heater? Remove issue from the dashboard?

Great thanks forward.

My guess is that the core is restricted or plugged, but the stat could be stuck open too, I suppose. So cut her back with the wall valve,or the control trigger.
The latter is easy to test, but for the heater core I clamp both hoses, then remove them from the heater core. Then attach some spare hose to the core and blow it out. Now; you have to be careful on these old girls not to blow them to pieces,lol. So I use town-water from a garden hose, but those have ~55psi in them so if you hit with all of that, then you'll probably damage it.
So after all the sludge comes out, then I use a combination of compressed air in short bursts and the water hose. That's gonna make a mess, so you can try redirecting some of it with strategically placed deflectors and just wash her down when yur done.

The test after it's all back together, is to have a 20 to 30 degree spread between the hot and cold sides with the blower running wide open.Well, in addition to having hot air in the cab,lol.

Another possible cause is the temperature control cable came off either the lever at the control panel or at the blend door bell crank at the heater box, or the cable housing is detached at one end.

Was your car an original A/C car or non-A/C car? Your reply will affect my answer.

Also, can you do a rough sketch of how your heater hoses are currently routed, please?
BudW

I don't have more history of the car than what I see what is on the car. So I guess it is a non AC car, it has on each side of the cabine air vents that works well in the summer. But doesn't have seen open holes in the firewall that could show a removal of the AC.

I would start to get more acces to the controlling of the heater box in the afternoon. Fist some suspension fixtures.

Non-A/C cars has the blower motor sticking out through the firewall.

The red arrow is heater hoses (on A/C cars, the heater hoses are more towards center of the firewall).
The yellow arrow is the blower motor. My blower is silver, this one is black.

Factory A/C cars have a rectangular hole for the A/C expansion valve (white arrow) and built-in metal duct that protrudes into the firewall (normally hidden by the washer fluid bottle) (black arrow).

This is from @Aspen500 car.

Well the cabine gets hot again. At the end it was just that the core was clogged, and with flushing with town water all rust gets out. So the water take the easy way to flow to the evaporator.
Before I did checked the cables and the was connected right and have given some lubrication.

I makes me wonder why Chrysler didn`t just use one style firewall instead of two styles with the a/c and non a/c. With the non a/c cars that got a/c kits installed at the dealer, the a/c fit fine under the dash. I had a dealer installed kit in my 76 volare back in the day. I never really looked close enough at it under the dash to see exactly how it went in there. I`m pretty sure the only thing they did to the firewall was to drill some holes.

Dealer installed A/C rarely worked as good as the factory installed systems. Dealer installed kits were a compromise to make them fit with as little cutting and modifying as possible where the factory system was designed to work good and the car was made to fit around the system. That's my experience and my theory anyways. I installed many of them at the Ford dealer back in the '80's and very early '90's (along with speed control and AM/FM upgrades from just AM or no radio) when A/C wasn't standard equipment on pretty much every vehicle built. They worked but, the factory system would blow them away in both air flow AND air temp. Side note: The factory A/C was way more reliable than dealer installed too. They ( the add-on) seemed to work for a couple years and then puke out. Usually the cost to repair it made the customer say "screw it" and, a lot of times getting parts for a dealer installed system more than a couple years old was about impossible. The kits were made by various vendors for Ford and they tended to come and go and, once the vendor went (out of business) no more parts.

Now, why the didn't use only the A/C firewall and if A/C wasn't ordered, block the openings off and design the heater plenum to fit in the same space. The world may never know!

Good deal you've got heat again! Can't go without a heater this time of year.

It is now more pleasant to drive in this cold weather. Only seeing if I can find a place to work on the car in a somewhat warmer environment. Now I mainly work on the car parked on the street and my fingers almost freeze. But you get used to it. But maybe I can temporarily park the car in a hall at work to be able to do some welding work.

I do highly encourage people to use (either) glycol-based coolant and distilled water (50/50 mix) or purchase pre-mix (50/50) coolant. Glycol-based coolant has green (or yellow) tint to it. A person might have to go out of your way to purchase distilled water – but it is all I will use.

My local Walmart sells distilled water at about $1 per gallon


The use of ANY other kind of water (purified, spring, drinking, tap, city, mineral, etc.) can work short term but is not good for the cooling system. Distilled water is 100% pure water (H2O) and is the only thing the factory wants us to use. The impurities in water will cause corrosion, rust and gunk buildup inside of the cooling system – in a short amount of time.
If you must use tap water (burst hose on the road, etc.) – I highly recommend you flush out the entire cooling system once you get home.


On another note: the anti-corrosion properties in green coolant stops working after 24 months of usage, which is why Chrysler recommends changing coolant every 24 months.
I can say I can tell when working on cars which has had coolant changed every 24 months of use and those cars which hasn’t been changed as often.
I don’t know enough about the newer coolants (orange, blue, red, etc.) to comment about them. I also don’t know about using green coolant only a few miles a year (like some of the members here do) – so I can’t comment there, either. I drive my vehicles instead of letting them gather dust.


There is nothing wrong with using pre-mix (50/50) antifreeze, especially if you don’t work on cars much. I use about 4-8 gallons of coolant a year and I only purchase the non-prediluted (100%) stuff because of costs. My local parts store sells (I used Prestone, only because I know ifs available most places) Prestone extended life coolant for about $13 (US) a gallon. The prediluted (50/50 mix) sells for about $10 a gallon and distilled water is about $1 a gallon.

No mention of 50/50 mix. It might say concentrate (maybe)


Does say 50/50 mix (pre-diluted, in this case).

For example, if a car holds 2 gallons of coolant at a 50/50 mix, that would be either:
1 gallon of antifreeze at $13 plus 1$ for 1 gallon of distilled water ($14 total) or
2 gallons of pre-mix at $10/gallon ($20 total).

Note: I'm not pushing for Prestone. I've had good luck with them, but I generally purchase what is cheapest, which is generally the store brand.

In my case I use enough coolant, it pays to purchase distilled water. Other people, it might not be the hassle to worry about the cost difference and to make sure the coolant mix level is at 50/50 (50% water and 50% antifreeze) so a pre-mix works best.


@SixBanger I'm not picking on you or trying to pick on you. You just brought up a topic that I wanted to expand on (for other members).
BudW

No problem Bud.

Here they divide it into three (four..) global groups of coolant.

G11, flued collor blue/green for older engines and resistant to silicates.

G12, red/yellow based on Organic Acid Technologie (OAT) with no silicates. Introduced since more aluminum engine blocks used in cars. Therefore it is not harmful to aluminum parts.

G12+ purple/no color extra effective additives compared to G12.

G13, purple / violet delivers the same cooling and antifreeze performance as the G12 +. The biggest difference: G13 is made with glycerine instead of glycol. Glycerine is much less harmful to the environment than glycol (by-product of biodiesel).
Silicate additives make G13 ideal for long-term use in all modern radiators, especially those made of aluminum, cast iron and magnesium alloys.
On the other hand, G13 is not the best choice for older cooling systems with a copper / brass radiator and heating block. In particular, it is not suitable for lead solder.

When 100% using of glycol coolant, the boiling point is higher than only distilled water.

Stay away from the OAT coolants like GM's Dex-Cool, or as we in the car repair industry call it, DEX-KILL. It not only will corrode metal, when it gets older it basically eats plastic parts as well. Turns them to a fragile mush consistancy. It'll look fine until you breathe on it and then it just falls apart. I guess OAT coolant is OK if changed every 2 or 3 years but leave it in there for 10 years and, disaster.

I like the yellow stuff we use in most vehicles at work. It seems to be excellent and doesn't have that nausiating (to me) odor of the green. Certain makes we use Pentosin brand OEM type like red for Toyota, blue for Honda, etc if just adding. On a complete coolant change, usually the yellow.

My daughter had a 2012 Chrysler 200. Mopar Oat and Hoat coolant was mixed together and turned the coolant into a thick gel paste. What a PITA to flush that shit out. Ultimately sold the car due to repetitive clogged heater core, reverse flushing would instantly clear the blockage but the system never recovered from the mixture.........
The heater core would clog the next day.......
She now has a 2017? Jeep Compass and I already flushed the cooling system and replaced with the factory spec’d Mopar 10 year OAT antifreeze.

Now to do my 2013 Avenger and 2007 Ram....... Definitely flushing, replacing with factory recommended Mopar coolant and distilled water..........
Brake fluid flush is on the list too but that’s a no brainer ....

I've noticed, even if it's pure OAT coolant, if it's left in the system too long it still turns to a muddy, gel paste. Plugs the heater core, eats any cooling system gasket including head gaskets and destroys any plastic cooling system parts, water pumps, etc. If changed when it's supposed to be, no problems. Unfortunately, a majority of people never have it done, even if told it should be. We charge $119 for a coolant system flush using a dedicated machine (and it does an excellent job) but too many don't want to spend the money. Later on it costs MUCH more than that, once the damage is done such as coolant burning and going out the tailpipe. Other types of coolant need changed also except the damage caused by not doing it is a whole lot less.