John Pollman
Member
- Messages
- 1,332
- Location
- Rochester Hills, MI
Hi folks,
It's Sunday morning so I can't do much today but I have a pretty good idea as to why the heater in my truck isn't working. I'm pretty sure that there's a blockage in the heater core. Here's the story.
Back on Memorial Day weekend 2012, I came out to get in the truck and go somewhere. I noticed a puddle of coolant under the truck. I found that there was a pinhole leak in the radiator. I picked up a new radiator and installed it. Being May, I knew there wasn't any chance of freeze up so instead of filling the new radiator with antifreeze, I just topped it off with water. I planned on running it that way for a week or so to make sure that there were no other leaks. Everything was fine and no leaks.
I think it was probably August I took it in and had a complete coolant flush and fill. I noticed in November that the heater didn't seem to be putting out as much as normal. Then I noticed that whenever I was stopped at idle, the thing blew fairly cold air. I figured that it was low on coolant but I checked and it was a little low but not too much so I topped it off with some 50/50 I bought.
It seems to be getting worse and about a week ago, I pulled the radiator cap off when it was cold and the radiator is full. The reservoir is full too. I started it up and ran it up to operating temperature and let it run for at least an hour thinking that maybe there was an air bubble trapped in the system. I would think that would have allowed it to work its way out.
Yesterday driving down the road, I noticed that the heater really wasn't putting out much at all even while driving at speed. I pulled over and popped the hood. I reached in and felt the heater hoses going into the firewall. One was warm and the other was pretty cold. This tells me that there is probably a blockage in the heater core.
I really don't want to spend $130 for another flush and fill. I'm going to talk to the shop that did it in the morning and see if there's anything they can do. I might be nuts, but here's my thought. Is there anyway that they may be able to hook their flushing equipment to just the heater core and flush only that portion of the system? It seems like they should be able to because there's just an inlet and outlet hose on the firewall.
I'm not completely familiar with how they do the flush and fill when it's done, but I thought that they tapped into the heater hoses to do the procedure.
Does this sound like something that could be done? I would think it would be a lot cheaper than doing a whole system flush/fill.
Thanks for any input!
It's Sunday morning so I can't do much today but I have a pretty good idea as to why the heater in my truck isn't working. I'm pretty sure that there's a blockage in the heater core. Here's the story.
Back on Memorial Day weekend 2012, I came out to get in the truck and go somewhere. I noticed a puddle of coolant under the truck. I found that there was a pinhole leak in the radiator. I picked up a new radiator and installed it. Being May, I knew there wasn't any chance of freeze up so instead of filling the new radiator with antifreeze, I just topped it off with water. I planned on running it that way for a week or so to make sure that there were no other leaks. Everything was fine and no leaks.
I think it was probably August I took it in and had a complete coolant flush and fill. I noticed in November that the heater didn't seem to be putting out as much as normal. Then I noticed that whenever I was stopped at idle, the thing blew fairly cold air. I figured that it was low on coolant but I checked and it was a little low but not too much so I topped it off with some 50/50 I bought.
It seems to be getting worse and about a week ago, I pulled the radiator cap off when it was cold and the radiator is full. The reservoir is full too. I started it up and ran it up to operating temperature and let it run for at least an hour thinking that maybe there was an air bubble trapped in the system. I would think that would have allowed it to work its way out.
Yesterday driving down the road, I noticed that the heater really wasn't putting out much at all even while driving at speed. I pulled over and popped the hood. I reached in and felt the heater hoses going into the firewall. One was warm and the other was pretty cold. This tells me that there is probably a blockage in the heater core.
I really don't want to spend $130 for another flush and fill. I'm going to talk to the shop that did it in the morning and see if there's anything they can do. I might be nuts, but here's my thought. Is there anyway that they may be able to hook their flushing equipment to just the heater core and flush only that portion of the system? It seems like they should be able to because there's just an inlet and outlet hose on the firewall.
I'm not completely familiar with how they do the flush and fill when it's done, but I thought that they tapped into the heater hoses to do the procedure.
Does this sound like something that could be done? I would think it would be a lot cheaper than doing a whole system flush/fill.
Thanks for any input!