After driving for a year without a heater I finally decided to hook it back up. I got some 5/8" hose and hooked them up. Refilled the coolant. Got car to operating temp. Turned the heater on (yes I heard the little motion in the dash) waited like 3 minutes and NOTHING. I was bummed. Any suggestions?

 

Is there any air coming out? or is it just dead?

 

does it blow out the air, except its cold - not hot?

I would first try going under your dash on the drivers side...(you can reach it without taking DICK apart) and look at your heater core/ducting box.....its right behind where your HVAC controls are...... it has a steel lever coming down off of it with a rod and a clip, undo the clip and pull the rod off and see if you can operate the flap manually (slide it back and forth....if it actually moves back and forth)

short of that..flush your heater core

 

Lots of cool air. Could it just be that the coolant hasn't hit the heater core yet, or enough? I haven't gone for a road test yet.

 

if the coolant hasn't "hit" the heater core by the time the car is full running temp(said it was full running temp in the first post) then you've got an air lock, shut off the car cuz its gonna overheat.....but by the sounds of it thats not the problem

 

Its gonna take it a bit to actually heat up. I have teh same issue where the heater blows cold air for the 1st 5-10 minutes of my morning commute, then it blows nice and hot once the car reaches temp.

 

wiat wait wait - why was the heater core bypassed in the first place?

 

I was lazy when I put my engine in. And broke the metal pipe going from radiator to firewall. I think it may be this air lock thing. How would I go about fixing an "air lock"?

 

if youve got an air lock you there is a couple ways to fix it....this way oughta work for you....

start the car with the cap off the radiator/waterpump - depending on your model
without getting your arms tangeled in the clutchfan squeeze the lower rad hose until you see the coolant rise through the open cap
sqeeuze it again
sqeeuze it again
sqeeuze it again
sqeeuze it again
sqeeuze it again
eventually an air bubble will pop up....the fluid level should drop slowly with each squeeze or groups of squeezes.....
try the top hose after a while and then the bottom....

an air lock is just a pocket of air trapped in the coolant viens preventing coolant from traveling past wherever it is...yours may be in your heater core....

BUT while doing this keep a close eye on your temp...if the pocket of air makes it way to the waterpump and is dormant there for too long you WILL overheat the car.

there are other more technical ways but this should git er done

 

its more than likely got crap in the heater core though, before doing anything else I would actually see if coolant flows through the core.

take off the two lines and stick a hose in one of them, if water runs out one side as fast as it runs in...the core is fine...if the flow either slow or non existent you need to either attempt flushing it or replace it

edit: BUT if you wanna take my original advice which involves taking nothing apart and only about 5 minutes of your time, not getting dirty, then feel free since that may end up being the remedy you find AFTER doing all this other crap