No Heat! Ha!

After not taking the climate control on my '96 Roady off 60-degrees since last March I tried to use the heater this morning. Nope. Nada! Vents switch fine, from defrost to dash to floor, but blows ice cubes. Not a hint of heat, so I'm thinking a blend door is stuck shut.

Was 46 degrees this morning and the kids were complaining on the way to school....headed for 82 this afternoon, thankfully.

After this summer I felt like I'd never turn on a heater again...but now will have to dive in. Will check the coolant level first after work...but I don't think that's the issue.

Never a dull moment!

-Mike

Your heater core is likely plugged, very common. Disconnect the hoses running to the and flush both ways. You will be amazed at the crap that comes out. Could be something else, but would definitely look at this first. Turn on the heater grab the 2 heater hoses, if one is hot and the other is cold, your plugged.

Tom

silverfox103 wrote:

Your heater core is likely plugged, very common. Disconnect the hoses running to the and flush both ways. You will be amazed at the crap that comes out. Could be something else, but would definitely look at this first. Turn on the heater grab the 2 heater hoses, if one is hot and the other is cold, your plugged.

Tom

Hmm....I flushed all the DEX-Cool crap out when I bought the car...HATE that stuff. Will try flushing the core. Thanks for the heads-up!

Hot in and hot out....just checked after meeting my wife for lunch. Back to the blend door idea....

Mike before you tear into the dash please just disconnect your battery for a minute and then try
the heat again.Let me know what happens.
Jim

Flasheroo wrote:

Mike before you tear into the dash please just disconnect your battery for a minute and then try
the heat again.Let me know what happens.
Jim

Fixed! Thanks Jim!

After work it was in the upper 70's. Got in the car and hit Auto and jacked it up to 90 thinking the warm weather might kick it on. Nope. Blew ice cubes.....out of the floor vent all the way home.

Pulled in the driveway, popped the hood and shut the engine off. Took the positive cable off for about 30-secs and then hooked it back up, and fired the car back up.

At first it only displayed the outside temp. Pressing the buttons did nothing. Then after about 15 secs it came on as Auto 79-degrees. I ran it up to 90 and it dropped to the floor vent and after a second the fires of hades began blowing. Ha!

So now I was paranoid that I would not have cold a/c. Ran the temp down to 60 and the vents switched from floor to mid and ice cubes began blowing out the dash vents.

.......I sat outside in the driveway for about 5-mins switching from full hot to full cold....telling myself the actuator was stiff or sticking from not moving for 7-8 months and I wanted to make sure to get it really working well again.........

Convinced it was fixed I shut it down and am inside now. We'll see how it does in the morning. Supposed to drop back into the 40's tonight again.

Never a dull moment! Thanks again Jim!

-Mike

We'll see what happens.....

Mike I think it has to do with the CC resetting after the power disconnect than the cables.
I had the opposite problem last spring and after disconnecting the battery and reconnecting
the CC went thru its standard systems check and then it was fine.To be honest I am not
sure what I did but it worked!
Jim

Awesome! I love it when something simple fixes the problem.

I've been chasing the same issue, been through all the typical procedures. I've already verified that my actuator is responding to the control module, should I still have hope that a disconnect might work for me? I'm not sure what else the control module controls.

That little trick has worked more than once for me.Always go with the quickest,easiest and
cheapest ideas first and save the complicated crap for later.
Jim

Had fine heat driving in to work this morning. Worked like a charm...kids were happy!

Headed for the 80's this afternoon so we'll see how the a/c does after work.

So far seems fixed! Thanks again Jim!

-Mike

You are most welcome Mike now stop with all the thanks before you jinx it!
Jim

Flasheroo wrote:

You are most welcome Mike now stop with all the thanks before you jinx it!
Jim

10-4

Heat? At 46 degrees?

Cadet57 wrote:

Heat? At 46 degrees?

Remember, he's from TEJAS

Scrambling to find a vehicle ASAP now myself. Gotta have heat. It's gonna be 33 here on Thursday. 40s in the mornings every other day. Durango has no heat, no air, blown head gasket. My car has hot heat, no air, dead miss on 7, stuck valves possible. Silhouette has hot heat, cold air, blown head gasket, possible cracked head(s). So we will probably rent a van to get around for a week while the Silhouette goes into the shop and the Durango gets scrapped. If I get my way that is. I wanted to work on it myself but I am thinking have a mechanic do it so if it blows up again in a month I have someone to blame.

Thats right blame the mechanic who is trying to help you in the first place and earn a living at
the same time.Remind me to never sell you a car.The 318 in your durango has had to pull that
heavy ass suv around and who knows why it has a blown head gasket.Maybe you havent
maintained properly or your wife drove it around with the temp gauge pegged.My point is
dont blame the mechanic for something completely out of his control.And yes I use to earn a pretty good living as a mechanic in spite of customers like you,
Jim

You don't know JACK about this situation, JIM. I'm talking about having the van fixed in a shop because it's new to me and I know little about its history. So having a mechanic work on it makes sense because if he gets in there and there's a cracked block or something I'm paying him for the teardown and scrapping the POS. Or he can have it. Or whatever. Or it's none of your business why.

My wife doesn't drive around with needles pegged. She's more careful about it than I am. That Durango gets babied and its on its last legs. No sense putting money into it just to have a truck with no heat and no air. The van seems to be worth fixing, I choose it. Durango needs scrapped this time around. We got 48K out of the used engine we put in 3 years back. That's enough.

Isn't this Flasheroo the same poster who has been banned from this forum time and time again? Keep running your mouth, Jim. Maybe next time they won't let you back.

Alan you said you were going to blame the mechanic and I have never been banned here or anywhere else.End of discussion!
Jim

*low whistle*.... it's gettin' a little warm in here now...

Mike, I haven't had heat either. I'll have to try and disconnect the battery cable too. Hopefully that'll do it. Oh, by the way... it was 36 on my way to work here in Chicagoland... so I don't wanna hear about how "cold" it was in Texas this morning... LOL

Oh, so sorry about that. We only hit 38 this morning. Gran Torino has all the heat my kids and I need.

Wife went bonkers and decided to rent an Acadia for the next week until my Shill-O-Ette gets out of the shop. Family friend mechanic is too busy (read: he doesn't want to work on a GM minivan) so it's going to a shop way out in the middle of nowhere and GOOD GOD there are a lot of older cars laying in people's yards out that way.

Even the tow truck driver let me in on a little secret. All the old good cars are NORTH of the wastewater treatment plant. He himself has got THREE '74 Torinos sitting in a barn on his property that were wrecked in the mid-70's and he and his Dad stripped them in the early 80's and the shells are gone (except for the coupe) and all those mint parts are just sitting waiting. Concrete floor, good roof, nothings rotted away. Good news, I'm getting seats and carpet and a dash pad and all sorts of plastic goodies for my car. Bad news, well, the bad news is for my wife. I'm probably going to buy that coupe.

I saw a lot of good old iron and I'll be back through there a couple times delivering parts to the shop and I'll be looking for wagons.

Short list of things I saw:

'75 LeMans coupe
'72 Skylark sedan
'70 Caprice coupe
'68 Fury coupe (Sport? GT? IDK...)
'75-'76 Coronet/Charger coupe
'75-'77 Grand Prix coupe
'80 Volare coupe
'71 Grand Prix coupe
'67 Grand Prix coupe

At one point in my youth I was ready to sell my soul to the Devil just to buy a '67 Grand Prix convertible.

What's goin on with the min-van?... we've practically got the same van., only ours is a '01 Chevy Venture. We had the trans rebuilt earlier this summer, put a new cat on, new AC condenser, new ignition coil, plugs, wires, brakes and a bevy of emission control crap... and the CEL STILL comes on!! I bought the van last year and it ran fine and until we got over 140K miles and it started falling apart. Only bought the van for $2G on CL and have probably put that into it... it's practically a new car now.... besides the CEL. Good luck on your hunt for a new/classic car. I'd go with the 72 Skylark... you can still get parts for it and it's basically a Chevelle only nicer.

Oh shoot, I'm not interested in any of those. Except maybe the '67 GP. But I have dozens of roads to drive down and see what else is hiding in plain sight.

I used to do this all the time 10-15 years ago. No time to do it anymore. Have to squeeze it in between kids school and soccer and this and that and life. Life sucks. I need some combustible lemons.

Van repairs were going to cost $350ish in parts plus machine shop charges. Shop is doing it for $400 labor plus $300 in parts and whatever the machine shop wants if the heads are ok to use and need a little something. I expect to be $800-$850 in for the repair and that means I'll need to keep it for a few months to amortize that cost in my head. Killed me to fix up the Intrepid back in 2007 just to turn around and sell it to break even. Thankfully I'm not in a problematic financial position, but I'm still a cheapass.