First there is a little background. I got this car from my great great aunt who had purchased the car brand new in '89. There are only 56k stock miles on the car and the only true problem i had was a brake line was coroded and went out on me. Anyway I digress from my real problem. It is reaching below zero temps in wisconsin and all over the US and My heater is only blowing a minimal amount of heat out of two of the six vent in the front of the car. I was curious if anyone had any suggestions as to what i could do to fix this so my car isn't so darn cold.
Thanks,
Erik

 

Is it blowing a strong volume of air but only out two vents? Or is the volume weak and you can only feel the air out of two vents? Or is the air cool an will not get hot? In the first case I would suggest the baffles may be stuck shut or a cable is unhooked or a servo problem, second case I would say that mabey the switch for the blower speed may be faulty only allowing the blower motor to operate on low. The third case I would say it's the thermostat.

 

I would say it is more of the second scenario. It is blowing warm air but nothing too hot at least while the car is driving around. If i am warming the car up it blows nice hot air but once i start driving around it still only blows out of the two vents and is relatively cool but not cold in comparison to the temp outside of course!

 

It does sound like you need a new thermostat, I'd change that to start with, then you will at least have hot air all of the time.

As for the two vent thing, when you change the switch from say foot level to defrost will it still only blow out the same two vents?

 

There actually is no foot level in that car it is only those vents in the main dash. but if you are looking at the dash the ones closest to both driver and passenger windows barely blow anything and then the one next to the steering wheel is the same thing and then the two that work then the passenger side ones blow next to nothing.

 

I disagree. First, once the engine reaches operating temp, the coolant will never be below 160F. Changing the thermostat will not change this.

Second, be sure the coolant level is correct in the radiator. Frequently, air pockets due to low coolant level will cause the heater core to become cold.

Third, is this a heater-only car or heater plus A/C? The method for controlling airflow and temperature of the air is different. The heater only cars use cables, the A/C cars use vacuum operated flapper doors, even on the heat settings.

Fourth, there is ALWAYS supposed to be airflow from the floor when the controls are in the HEAT position. If you are not getting heat from the floor, one of the vacuum diaphragms or control cables has a problem.

There are a number of possible problems. You need to be more specific in describing your symptoms. For example, with the car at idle, do you get airflow in the appropriate locations? Does the fan speed and thus volume of airflow appropriately vary when you change the fan speed switch? Try to provide the most accurate description of what happens when. Otherwise, it's very difficult to diagnose long-distance.

 

I would agree if the engine warms up to normal operating temperature, and it holds that temp on the gauge the thermostat is good, I, however have had two thermostats on two different cars stick open,(niether had a temp gauge, one was a 93 geo metro go ahead and laugh, the other was an 89 grand prix, had a temp gauge but didn't work) when the car was sitting in the driveway it would warm up to a decent temp., not saying normal operating temp but felt nice when you got in the car, but when you would pull out to drive in the cold lets say 10-20 degrees the air would blow colder replaced the thermostat problem solved, but thats just my 2 cents, Joe has probably forgotten more than I know...I would also agree you have a control problem in the system. I was only using the foot level to defrost as an example of switching the air outlets to test the operation.

 

This is true. At operating temp the temp gauge is reaching a temperature over 160 it just drops to below that while driving around in the cold weather. So I would have to agree that it is more than likely something with the level of coolant in the car. I will more than likely flush out the coolant system in the next few days and see what the result is. Thanks for the advice!

 

I had another issue that i wanted to address as well. I am a college student and obviously money is something i dont have an over abundance of to spend on parts or repairs. Is there a place to order cheaper parts or a good website on DIY things? Other than that I think the only other concern of mine was that of the vent blowing to the windshield. Which virtually blows nothing to the windshield. Is there something that might be blocking an air duct or something along those lines that I could clean out? And I completely understand what you are saying about the floor vents i was more or less thinking of a different car that i use to drive that had the floor setting. My apologies on that.

 

If the car was sitting for a long time, it might be possible that some mice may have made a nest in the heat ducts and are clogging/blocking things off.

 

There are a number of good, reasonably priced sources for stock replacement parts. Two I've used are:

Rock Auto www.rockauto.com
National Automotive Lines www.natauto.com

 

If that is the case how would i go about getting into the ducts to clean them out? Basically what i am asking is what would be the most efficient way of going about cleaning out the ducts on a free sunday or something to that effect?

 

I was talking to a friend of mine that i work with the other night and i asked him about the problem with some of the vents not blowing air. He works for a auto parts store and does all the work on his own cars... Anyway he said that there could be a problem with the assembly that allows the air to travel through the ducts and may not be the ducts being clogged at all. I would like to know if anyone would know how to go about looking at this problem in my car!

 

Is it possible the tubing came off?

This happened in my Delta the tubing was off for one vent and I couldn't figure out why I wasn't getting hot air from that side.

 

How did you get access to that hose though i had almost the entire dash out once prior doing some minor electric work but dont really recall too much tubing!