Heating Woes
 

My dad drives our SVX to work in the morning, and when he first started driving the svx to work, the heating did not work to great. We disconnected the hoses to see if the coolant was getting to the core, I don't remember what we did, but I think we put some pressured air through it. The heating worked fine for about a month, but now its blowing cold again. What should I do? Thanks for help in advance.

Install a new thermostat..

^^^What he said.

We have changed that recently. What would changing it do? If the engine is not overheating, then what difference would it make. I just remembered we changed the water pump because we though it wasn't pumping enough water.

If the thermostat isn't opening it won't allow heated coolant to flow into the heater core and yoou car won't have any heat inside. The car isn't overheating (yet) because the pressure will build to a point that it forces the thermostat open for a brief period, but long enough for there to be coolant flow to keep the engine from overheating. Are you seeing the coolant temp gauge move around at all? This happened to my Taurus not long ago. No heat inside, and the gauge would bounce from lower than normal to higher than normal every few minutes while driving. A new thermostat and everything was fine again.

Did I say "heat" enought times in there?:lol:

Or, going w/ the t-stat here, it could be stuck open. This allows too much flow and thus too much cooling. Result is no real heat.

I would think that there is a blockage in the heater core and would try blowing it out in reverse flow w/ compressed air. It has been seen on many cars and is usually a quick fix as you said and it worked before for you. Maybe you just need a good coolant flush done with the heat on.

Thermostat isn't that much, I'll give it a try. My escort does what your saying with the gauge. I don't drive the SVX so I don't know what the temp gauge is showing. Thanks for the help.

I've found that backflushing a heater core with air shortens it's life. I prefer to adapt the good ol' garden hose to the return hose, & running it full blast, does the trick just as well. Your common water pressures aren't a lot higher than the cooling system's normal pressure.

I'll also +1 to the T-stat sticking open.