So the heat in my Tacoma stopped working a couple weeks ago and I think I found the issue... I flushed the heater core and it seemed clean, once the coolant washed through it was clear water right away. The hose was hot going into the core, and a bit cooler coming out so I could pretty much rule out the core as an issue.
I then removed the lower dash piece under the stereo and a piece of the feet heat ducting and saw this broken stud. Its a pivot for the brackets which move around for the heater controls. You can see the broken stud in the first picture and also the white plastic piece is supposed to be clipped to another white plastic piece. I hope my badass paint skills help explain this haha.




The rod on the right in this 2nd photo is what controls the flapper to get heat in and out of the system, if I manually hold it over by hand I can get heat into the truck...its especially hot at the feet.




Now just to figure out the best way to replace that broken stud.... any ideas??

 

Abandon all hope or if possible replace the broken plast stud with a bolt

 

Take VIN in hand to your dealer and see if that part can be bought without having to get all the HVAC cables .

Toyota can be funny that way at times.

Then at sometime that part had to be forced to cause it to break like that.

 

Ok...I'll try the dealer thing at some point here. Will probably tear into the lower dash some more to see what kind of access I can get to the broken bolt

 

Well I have the arm zip tied over for now to have it set @ full heat. Its been -30C (-22F) here though and the truck still isn't putting out much heat. It blows super hot down at the passenger feet, but barely luke warm at face and defrost heat....Any ideas why this is happening?? I need to get this figured out it is damn cold here!

 

Well I figured it out.

The plastic stud that broke was operating the foam flapper door that blocks the heater core when the temp is set on Cold. When it broke it was in the Cold closed position thus not allowing any hot air through the system.

I think it broke because of all the crap stuck between the foam door and the heater core ( pine needles, hair, a chunk of broken blower motor resistor) causing tension on the stud and it broke. I JB welded it back together and am hoping for the best!