Nice tidbit for those with barely any heat

[ryanprins13]

Ok, by the main plenum baffle you mean the one that controls hot/cold right? I was so sure it was my heater core when i changed it that i didn't look at anything else...
Ok, when i change my radiator i will pull some hoses while its running and see how the flow is to check if anything is plugged.
Thanks.


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[jawja jim]

To see how bad your seals are, you can put the mode selector to floor heat. You don't have to turn on the fan or set the temp to heat. You should not get any airflow through the dash vents in that position.

[ryanprins13]

Nice tidbit for those with barely any heat

That was a funny experiment! I tried that this morning on the way to work. Moved the lever from windshield to just feet and i think more air came out the windshield vents! Lol, guess i know what i have to fix now. Thanks


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[Eaglefreek]

I finally found the motivation to change out my thermostat. Now I know why my car would barely heat up. There wasn't a thermostat in it! I installed the Mazda thermostat. I couldn't get it to install with the small valve at 12:00 due to a boss in the head casting. I had to install it about 1:00. Now the needle goes to about 1/4' above the normal line.

[neanderpaul]

1/4 - 1/3 over cold is where my 89L four speed ran when it was new. Well, it was two years old with 22,700 miles on it. So that's the way it was set up from the factory.

[zoe60]

My Festiva was making barely lukewarm heat and I already had the Mazda thermostat, maybe four years old. I said to heck with it and got a Gates 33489S 195 degree Tstat from Rockauto. Put it in tonight and what a difference! It is actually making enough heat to survive now! Maybe these Mazda ones get worn out over time and we don't notice it. I just need to top it off with coolant again after it cools down some and then I will be ready for an Arctic trip.

[Dex~]

I'm getting good heat out of mine but the gauge never moves (it hasn't been over 60.f outside here since I've owned the car though)

New radiator was installed before I bought it, It does leak coolant somewhere near the drivers side of the engine, so I need to track that down, not sure what kind of tstat is in it at the moment.

Reading through this whole thread it seems like the temp gauge not moving in the colder months is a fairly common thing with these cars, just worried about overheating after owning a lot of K-motor Mopar's and having to get the head milled after it overheated and warped a few too many times in my Dakota (offroad adventures snagging a lower rad hose yay!)

[getnpsi]

All my festival, same thing. The fan cycles on and off and the temp gauge is still below the half mark compared to Toyota's which say they are good to go after 30 seconds. I considered moving the sensor for the gauge to a different location, changing sensor, nah. Install an aftermarket. and yes the new 195s are killer, same one in my truck b2200.

[lessersivad]

[lessersivad]

So the question has been posted PLENTY of times about the 'no heat out of the dash vents' and the answer has been 'that's just the way our cars were designed.

Now I KNOW it's getting warmer weather and a heater isn't really too much of a concern for now BUT, I have heat out of the dash vents after a bit of...ummm...er....modification.

I've been dealing with a slow loss of BTU output over the years. I tried changing the thermostat, blocking the radiator, flushing the cooling system, etc, etc.

Everything I did helped a bit but not to what I thought was the full potential. So, I removed the dash and heater box to investigate what I was pretty sure was going to be bad blend door seals.

Nope, turns out the heater core was plugged up most of the way. So I ATTEMPTED to clean it.....uh THAT didn't work, so I bought a new one.

While I had the heater box out I started to investigate a possible way of getting heat out of the dash vents WITHOUT totally 'reinventing the wheel' so to speak.

Well turns out that the heater core and AC evap core are pretty close to the same size (heater core is smaller) sooooo, using 'arts and crafts' skills, I modified the box which housed the AC evap core to hold the heater core.

Now IF the heater core starts leaking it's a matter of removing the glove box, removing the former evap box, and change out the core WITHOUT complete dash removal. BONUS is, heat out of the dash vents!!!