So I picked up my runner a couple of months ago, and have been slowly fixing up the gremlins in her, but one has me stumped.

My front heater doesn't work.

The rear heater works fine, and is enough to take the chill out of the air, but not enough to really heat up the cab.
The fan is blowing, and the temp gauge on the dash shows that the water is hot (within normal range), but I only get cold air coming out of the vents. The previous owner had installed a new radiator.

Anybody have any guesses? Ideas?

 

A little air in the system more than likely. Take a look at the FSM for it and it should go over "burping" the system to get all the air out of it.

 

i would be looking at the heater core.

Are the lines going into/coming out of the firewall getting hot?

 

If the rear heater works, then a duct must be disconnected as there is only one heater core AFAIK. Replacing the rad wouldn't go anywhere near it. The heater core is located deep under the dash, below the radio, in front of the shifters. Start peeling back the dash until you find your disconnected duct.

 

Check the in comming and out going heater hoses at the fire wall, they should both be very hot to the touch, if one hose is hot and the other hose is cooler then your heater core is plugged and will need to be replaced. replacing the heater core isn`t that hard, you have to remove the complete dash to get the heater core out, it takes about 4 hours from start to finish.

 

Nope, 2 heater cores in a 4Runner, the rear heat has it's own seperate one in the centre console.

 

Interesting, that would explain why the console is always hot.

 

Yeah, mine gets very warm, definitely not a good spot to keep ice cream

 

I now have "mediocre heat", jiggled the wire controlling the valve (located to the drivers right of the brake cylinder). Will have a go at burping the system next...