Quote:
Originally posted by Silver Streak
Well, I checked the temperature of my heater hoses going through the firewall. The one with the control valve is pretty warm, and the other one is just slightly warm. This is with the valve open and the fan on low. What does this mean?
Is my core is all plugged up? Does the coolant alway flow through the control valve first then into the core, and then back to the engine? I'm assuming the water pump cycles it through this heater core....
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The core should not have any contaminants which would literally plug up the heater core. Usually a simple flush with a garden hose can clear out 95% of the crud in the cooling system. The direction of coolant flow technically shouldn't affect anything. You can have the coolant flowing either way through the core and it shouldn't matter. But of course, always route the hoses like the way it came from the factory
My procedure for diagnosing this problem would be:
- check for air in the coolant system. Do a simple bleed to the system. This will also let you know if the thermostat is still working properly.
- check for coolant condition. Bad coolant will lose its ability to absorb heat efficiently from the engine. Also check for coolant/water ratio. More water will usually allow better heat absorption = more heat in the coolant.
- Check for climate control cable. Check to see if the heater core control is actually 100% opened. This can be checked by looking for slack at the actual heater control flap at the firewall when the climate control is all the way at HOT.
- The last thing would be checking for actual engine temperature. Sometimes a bad maintained engine (worn plugs/wires/ignition system) will make the engine run rich all the time. This would actually cause the car to heat up a lot slower.
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