Now that its cold we tried using our heater and it blows but, does not heat. We replaced the themostat and that didn't help. Any ideas?

thanks,

Leah

 

You heater core is plugged. Back flush it with a old garden hose. Simple, just put it on the side that goes into the intake manifold.

 

Thanks! could anyone send a diagram on how to do this? Or give a explanation for dummies? LOL

thanks much,

Leah

 

Just look for 2 heater hoses. They look like a average size garden hose. The 2 hoses will meet up next to each other at the firewall which is the barrier between the engine and the interior of your D. the hoses should go into the firewall near the driver's side. When you find the 2 hoses, look for the hose that runs back to the intake manifold as Hydra stated. Another way to know is the other heater hose is the hose that goes back to the water pump. If you find this one, then the other hose is the one you are looking for.

For the basic do it yourselver's,

Go and buy a reverse flush kit made by Prestone. The kit is very simple and easy to use and comes with instructions on where to hook it up. It comes with couplers and stuff to make flushing your cooling system much easier. The coupler that comes with the kit will be attached to the heater hose that connects to the intake manifold. Then you simply connect the water hose to the coupler and turn it on. This will force a clean flow of water in the opposite direction to the normal flow of antifreeze. Anything plugged up in the heater core will have a good possibility of being unplugged. Once you are done flushing, you remove the water hose from the coupler and then cap the coupler off with a cap that comes with the kit.

 

Thanks for that write up Kensai.

I didn't have time to write it up.

 

no Problem. Someone had to do it!

 

Thanks much Kensai!! I really appreciate it!

Leah

 

The problem with doing it that way is that now you have a bunch of junk floating around inside your coolant passages & radiator that can now clog them up and cause more costly problems. If you do it that way be sure to flush all of your coolant out and refill the entire system with fresh coolant. The best way is to remove both coolant hoses from the heater core and use the hose on one side of the heater core at a time for a couple minutes each side...If nothing comes out or the flow doesn't get any faster than you have to replace the heater core.

 

Daytona,

You are correct, if you are just trying to diagnose the heater core or radiator being possibly plugged up. But for an overall flushing out of the entire "healthy" cooling system, the procedure written is the way to do it. The procedures that comes with the prestone kit is very self explantory and easy to follow and it does a good job flushing and cleaning a healthy cooling system. I used this kit on all my vehicles. The included coupler connects the water hose directly to the cooling system to flush out the system.

But flushing out the heater core only, you can still use the kit, and then just disconnect the heater hose going to back to the water pump and just perform a one way reverse flush on the core. As soon as you start seeing water flowing out the other hose really good, then you have unclogged the heater core. If not, then you have to replace the core. if you try to flush in the normal direction flow of antifreeze, you may possibly push the contaminents further into the core, defeating your purpose of trying to unclog it in the first place.