I searched, found anothe thread on the matter but it didnt apply to my situation.

Background:
- 89 DX
- Its like -20 to 30F over here.
- temp guage rises
- heater blows cold

I brought the car in a heated garage and did the following:
- Flushed the rad
- pulled the lower rad hose from the engine &pulled the thrmostat (I.E. draining the engine of coolant
- raplaced the thermostat with a 192F thermo (stock is 160F)
- Thermo is installed in the right direction
- pulled the heater core lines and ran some water through it...came out rustish initially, but cleared up quickly....flow rate was good : I.E. no clog
- valve for the heater moves to open potition
- reflilled the rad with coolant while leavign the bleeder bolt open (to let air out so the engine could get some coolant
- turned the car on and let it idle, topped up the coolant as needed and squeezed air out of the hoses.
- Upper hose got burning hot, lower hose did nothing, heater hoses were pretty hot
- Lower hose suddenly heated up...eventually ebcame burning hot (thermo opened)
-not much air was ever present, and the bleeder screw didnt bleed much air.
- Drove the car warm, was blowing luke warm air, eventually blew cold air (temp guage went back down to cold)
- Coolant is approximately 70/30

I assumed that the enw coolant was cooling the engine better since the operating temperature went down to cold as I drove (which did not happen before I changed the coolant and thermo) so I blocked off 1/2 the rad with a piece of carbord. Now the temp stays pretty stable at a bit below 1/2. But the car still doesnt push any hot air.

It will heat up the car to a warmish temp if I let ir run for about 1 hour and keep it on recirculate....but thats ludicrous.

Its not an aspect of it beeing too cold here either, as other cars I've driven tend to heat up to burning hot temps after ~ 30 minutes.


WTF is wrong here?

Its not the thermo, the thing is brand new
Its not the core since it flows fine

WTF

 

dude try replacing your heater core. i had same problem in my car. after replacing the heater core and the radiator my car heated up so fast in the winter it was really ncie!

 

I'll keep it in mind...but I hope I dont have too...its a real PITA...plus if it flows....it should work.....maybe air wont flow through it.

 

Headgasket? Any leaks? Blue smoke? I have the same problem right now but it's due to my water pump leaking.

 

okay... my car was doing the same thing when i picked it up. i checked everything and everything was working perfect except i still wasn't getting hot air. well i went to see my guru Tbone and he put his hand under the middle consol... directly behind the consol and up...there is some sort of lever it moves forward and backwards and the movement travels towards the firewall and back towards the middle consol. i this sounds kinda wack and i hope you can understand what im saying.

if you move that lever one way you'll get hot air....the other way cold air. it takes maybe 3 seconds to do and its last resort, but if all else fails take a look.

hope this helps.

 

oh, have you checked your heater hose?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
okay... my car was doing the same thing when i picked it up. i checked everything and everything was working perfect except i still wasn't getting hot air. well i went to see my guru Tbone and he put his hand under the middle consol... directly behind the consol and up...there is some sort of lever it moves forward and backwards and the movement travels towards the firewall and back towards the middle consol. i this sounds kinda wack and i hope you can understand what im saying.
if you move that lever one way you'll get hot air....the other way cold air. it takes
maybe 3 seconds to do and its last resort, but if all else fails take a look.

hope this helps.

</TD></TR></TABLE>


SWEET

thanks I'll look into it....I dont understand what you are talking abotu, but I'll look for a lever.


I hope its not ym head gasket (BTW its white smoke & sweet smell = coolant, blue is oil) Its too cold here to tell if my headgasket is gone since all cars smoke like crazy due to the cold.

Could I have air in the system...I was surprised the block filled up so well...what is odd is taht the temp guage works and the hoses heated up...so it has to be heating up coolant

You know the odd thing tho, the heater on it worked good last yera.....as I rememeber, but I recently swapped a crx dash in... wonder if I didnt mess something up with one of the levers like you said.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Home Skillet &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">oh, have you checked your heater hose?</TD></TR></TABLE>

yup...I meantionned it...but I know there's allot of stuff to read.

They are warm and I ran water through the core and it came out the other hose no problem

 

Ok...I fopund that little lever...its white right?

Its connected to the temperature control and the heater core valve....so it works fine.


****.


On the good side, I seem to have lost allot of coolant somehow...I was at max, and now my tank is empty (In less than 1 week)....I'm hoping it was air in the system...but that's a fuckload of air...and I'd notice improved heating if that were true.

 

ttt