bigpapa18205

I have a 1996 tacoma with the 2.7. when i purchased the vehicle earlier this summer i had to replace the head gasket. i also replaced the thermostat at that time. I live in north dakota and it is starting to get cold(6 degrees this morning). anyway i am unable to get hot air to blow out the heater. i have searched old posts and i cant see anthing i havnt tried. like i said i replaced the thermostat with the head gasket less than 6 months ago, after idoling for 7 or 8 minutes the temp gauge is at normal so i am pretty sure it is working. when i move the hemp selector i can see the cable move on the valve under the hood, and i can hear the selector door moving in the cab. the air is warm but not at all sufficient. tonight i found a ditch to park her in, with the front end way in the air, i opened the radiator cap and the temp selector got moved back and forth several times trying to purge any air that may have been in the system, the pickup was fully warmed up. i diddnt notice any large ammount of air come out like i expected, and no improvment in the heat output. what else can i check? i am leaning a little bit toward a plugged heater core, as the previous owner used bars leaks but would like to rule everything else out first... thanks

PismoJoe

My heater core was plugged on my 4runner and was doing the same thing. If you know for sure that the coolant levels are ok (air in the system matters, but it still should get 'hot' even there is air in it) and know that the heater valve is working, its most likely plugged.

I just took the hose to inlet and outlet of the heater core off, hooked a shop vac up to it, and sucked all the crud out. I poured distilled water into the heater core and repeated this, sucking from the inlet, and then sucking from the outlet.

Now it gets too hot lol which is great for this time of year

brutalharmonies

sometimes thermostats can be confusing to install , aka you could have installed it upside- down , double check that isnt what happened , the temp gauge will read its getting hotter but since the thermostat is reversed the correct amount of coolant isnt reaching the heater core .......Just a thought , im not even exactly sure you can even install yota's therm's upside-down , but i did it on a ford van once lol took us forever to figure it out . good luck )

Brutal

( edit ) Just thought of something , certain vehicles will act up if you change the temperature of the thermostat , check and make sure you got the correct temperature thermostat for your particular vehicle . Not sure if it matters in Yota's or not tho . Good luck )

PismoJoe

Is that possible on the 3rz? I know on the 5vz, 22re, and 3vz that the housing won't allow it to be installed upside down.

But if you did somehow, your car would be over heating, so you would know it

brutalharmonies

Guess not , i wasn't actually sure if Toyota was reversible or not i only know i had these exact symptoms out of my old van and that's what it turned out to be . , just throwing out some idea's . It didnt fully over heat though , it did run hotter , but some coolant was actually getting through so it didnt fully overheat . lol took us forever to trace it down , we flushed the heater core etc etc turned out to be something small , lol hate it when that happens .