[Pocono guy]

Scratching my head over here trying to figure out why no heat.

Both hoses to the heater core are hot so flow seems good there.

When I charged up the A/C it worked fine for cooling the car. It did leak back down again which is another matter that I'm not concerned about for now.

Did the reset procedure by removing fuse #12 and reinstalling it. Did the press and hold On+Left Knob and heard the system cycle for 30 seconds or so.

Still blows only ambient temperature air with the temps on both sides set to 85. Tried also at max (90).. No Dice.

It seems like the door that opens to allow the air to flow through the heater core is not opening. Is there a way to get to the actuator for that flap without tearing the entire car apart? For now, until spring time I would be happy if I could make that door open and keep it that way and control temp manually via fan speed etc.
Can anyone help me understand where that actuator is and how to get to it..and if it's possible to open that flap manually?

Much appreciated!

 

[Tripwire]

See if you cand find a service manual on e bay? i got a DVD version for 15 beans, it should show you the location(s) and their function, if its vac actuated, it may just be a bad hose connection? you can manually operate them usually

 

[Pocono guy]

Hello Tripwire, thanks for the response.

I've been digging through this forum and have found some helpful info. I did buy one of those $15 cd versions but it seems quite a few pages are blank in the HVAC section.

I'm going to go back through it again and see what I can find as well as contact the person I got the manual from and try to get a better copy

 

[Tripwire]

you can try a 1 month subscription to "alldata" its 30 bucks....But you can renew for 3 years for 120.00 ( i just renewed ) if your gonna keep the car then you need this...

 

[Pocono guy]

Pretty good chance that I will do that sometime in the near future. I inherited this car from my 86 year old mom who finally hung up her driving gloves. With only 73K miles and overall great condition I plan to keep it as long as I can.

There is something that possibly you or another helpful catera fan could help me with.. I am trying to determine where exactly the Blend Door actuator is located and how to access it to R&R it with a new one. Seems they are available from Jegs and Rockauto.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

TIA!

 

[Pocono guy]

Turns out the biggest issue was a bad HCV valve and a clogged heater core.

Given all the issues many have posted with the HCV valves I ended up swapping out the HCV for a 5/8 brass T for now. Will consider either replacing it with a new HCV or a valved T or Y connector so I can manually turn on the flow to the core for the Winter months and off for Summer. I began to get a small amount of heat shortly after doing the swap, but not enough. I flushed out the old Dexcool until I had pure water and added a bottle of Blue Devil radiator flush. I ran it for about an hour and a half including a 25 mile round trip to town. While driving the heat continued to get better until it was quite hot. Radiator temp was just shy of 50% on the gauge.

Drained and flushed again...and drained the radiator and reservoir as far as they would drain. I added 6 quarts of Prestone Platinum to the water that remained in the heater core and the engine and that topped the system up completely. After running another short drive to force the air out of the heater core I now have seriously "like new" heat on the driver's side, but sadly not the passenger side. I will check the activator rods under the passenger side sometime this week and see if I can find the correct operating rod to zip tie into the correct position to open up the mix valve flap for the winter. Heat will then be controlled by fan speed. Even without that the car gets plenty warm...

Gonna have to leave it like that for the winter.