Heat Issue.....Blend Door???

[rc1626]

99 Expl. with 5.0.
On a cold morning I will start the vehicle 10-15min before going out. Heat is on. When I get in car after warming it up blowers are still blowing cold air. Drive down the block to my kids bustop and sit idle while waiting for bus and still blowing cold (about another 10 min.). After kids get on bus I drive to work and the heat finally will kick in. Only a minute or 2 after getting kids on bus and driving is when I start to feel the heat.

Do you think it is a coolant circulation problem or a blend door problem....or something else?

Any testing I can do to eliminate or pinpoint what it may be? No audible noise coming from blend dooor to give reason it would be that.

Any help appreciated.
Thanks.
Rob

 

[DjDom]

99 Expl. with 5.0.
On a cold morning I will start the vehicle 10-15min before going out. Heat is on. When I get in car after warming it up blowers are still blowing cold air. Drive down the block to my kids bustop and sit idle while waiting for bus and still blowing cold (about another 10 min.). After kids get on bus I drive to work and the heat finally will kick in. Only a minute or 2 after getting kids on bus and driving is when I start to feel the heat.

Do you think it is a coolant circulation problem or a blend door problem....or something else?

Any testing I can do to eliminate or pinpoint what it may be? No audible noise coming from blend dooor to give reason it would be that.

Any help appreciated.
Thanks.
Rob

I thought my blend door or heater broke a week ago.
But then I realized my truck wasn't warming up properly..
Check your engine temp gauge, does it go near the middle of the guage? (Should be just bellow the little icon)

Mine would sit at the C on the gauge.
My problem was that the thermostat was stuck open.
$30 at a part store, about 20 minutes of work, and it's all good now.

 

[rc1626]

Thanks DjDom. I actually suspected the thermostat but wanted to see what others thought. There are so many blend door issue posts on here that wondered if others had similar problems. I'm hoping it's not.

Thermostat is a quick, cheap, easy fix so I'll go that route first.

Thanks again.
Rob

 

[pricetag2]

One more thing to check is the coolant level. After agonizing about the blend door, I did the simple thing and checked. Added AF/H2O and I have steady heat.

 

[rc1626]

It's funny you bring that up. I put the truck in the garage late yesterday and put er up on jack stands to service the tranny. When I went under the hood to pull the tranny dipstick I popped open the radiator cap to take a peek and low and behold low coolant. I'll top er off and see what happens. Not really sure how low it is yet. If it's really low I can certainly see that being my issue.

Thanks for the input.
Rob

 

[DjDom]

It's funny you bring that up. I put the truck in the garage late yesterday and put er up on jack stands to service the tranny. When I went under the hood to pull the tranny dipstick I popped open the radiator cap to take a peek and low and behold low coolant. I'll top er off and see what happens. Not really sure how low it is yet. If it's really low I can certainly see that being my issue.

Thanks for the input.
Rob

While it's low on coolant, just do a full coolant flush and change the thermostat..
It's $30 that's well spent and will need to be done anyway.