Poor heating

[PetzK]

A thermostat is not a precision tool, I'd be satisfied with those 72°C , as long as it opens and closes properly.

Here is some reading stuff for you, about exactly the same problem you have:

http://www.dreamsofdrifting.com/ae86/heater/index.htm

hope that helps.
Patrick

[dreja]

PetzK, thanks for the link.
I was already suspecting a clogged heater, so I washed it with a pressurised water. I've plugged a hoose at one heater plug and left the other heather's plug opened.
The pressurised water was flowing throug the heater without problems.

I've also checked the heater valve on the firewall with pressurised water and it works ok.

So I think my heater isn't clogged...

Anyway, I'm wondering how the heater is build inside. Does it have just one hoose (bended) running from one side to the other ? Or there are some hooses paralleled?
In the case of parallelled hooses I might have some of them clogged...

If I remember well, time ago I've tried to pump the heater's hoose with car running. The hoose wasn't hot. I thinkf it should so hot that I could keep it touched just for a few seconds. But it wasn't.
So I decided to exchange the thermostat. I've already ordered one at Toyota (price about 25 eur). We'll see what happens after the exchange.

Regars
Andrej

[El_Camino]

I had similar problem with my AE86 now in the winter. The problem was not the radiator or the pipes. On the blue/red (cold/warm) switch in the car, there are two cables going out. The one stops the warm water to go into the radiator, the other one mixes the air in the car - hot/cold. The shell of the second one was broken so the hot air was not mixing. It was simply done in 20mins with the silicon gun.

[max_ae86]

Dreja, you can do a quick check of the second pipe that goes from warm/cold slider. Just remove the ash tray under slider and take a look inside. Check if the pipe is moving to the right side while slider is moved to the warm position. Try to move it with your fingers to all the way to the right side. Warm air should start to blow.

[El_Camino]

max_ae86 Wrote:Dreja, you can do a quick check of the second pipe that goes from warm/cold slider. Just remove the ash tray under slider and take a look inside. Check if the pipe is moving to the right side while slider is moved to the warm position. Try to move it with your fingers to all the way to the right side. Warm air should start to blow.

Yes, this is easy to be done. You can also check if the end of the wire, which connects to the heater behind the switches moves, when you move the slider. It can be easily seen from the passenger seat.

[dreja]

I think I've already done this...
One of two cables (the black one) moves the blend door, which I've tested earlier (see the pics) and the blue one moves the valve mounted at the firewall in the engine compartment.

[Kas]

Buy special fluid for cleaning cooling sistem, it is cheap, maybe 5 €.
I use this and, now is everything OK.

[dreja]

Yesterday I've changed the thermostat, and it seems that the heating works better.
The air is not so hot as in newer cars ( where I quite can't hold the arm on the dash holes where the air is comming out), but I can live with it.

I've also noticed that with normal driving below zero °C the coolant temperature doesn't rise to thermostat opening temperature so quick as in newer cars. This might be beceuse the fan is always working...

Regards
Andrej

[Ivan141]

It shouldnt matter that the fan is always working, the thermostat closes off the water supply to the radiator and bypasses it back into the engine.
But you are right...it takes long for the coolant to warm up during these cold days..Maybe it's just the design or coolant capacity of the engine itself.

[dreja]

I think the fan spins cold air through the engine. As it is always working (also when radiator is cold).

I saw a suggestion somewhere, that in winter you can remove the fan, and your car won't overheat. I would do this only if I was in Canada or in Russia, where the outside air temperatures are far lower than 0°C...