e150 heat system questions - Front and Rear

[sc93f]

I have a 1994 E150 5.0L Chateau. When I bought it a few years ago, the rear heat had been disconnected by not running coolant through the rear heat tubes. I would like to hook the rear heat back up. Are these lines just teed into the heater core lines, or are there some valves that may be missing? Living in the north where salt is the primary road surface this time of year, I wonder if the lines have rusted through to the point of leaking. Are they prone to this? The coating is flaking off over much of the tubes underneath. Anything else I should look after before re-plumbing these lines.

In the front, I get almost no heat on the drivers side floor, is this normal or is something messed up in my air distribution?

Thanks in advance, this is a great forum.
Scott

[drwako]

I've noticed no one has bothered to tackle your problem .... heaters don't seem to be very popular here. Must be all alabama boyz. lol. My 97 appears to be teed into the heater lines ... but don't take that as gospel. I'm in the same boat here ...no heat! If this were in fact the case ...I don't know why I don't have heat from either core ...although both are hot. I have resorted to buying the book for $115 plus shipping ...IF and when it arrives I will get back to you unless one of the MIchigan boyz decides he's let you freeze long enough and decides to help you out. I can say when I did have heat .... I used vent to heat the front passenger compt ...for immediate heat and floor for the long haul because it is as you say "almost no heat". If your 94 has the little trap door in the dash you can access two of the vacuum actuators through there and the third is on the pass. side next to the heater core. Vaccum lines are easy to access an all of these. If they are all operating ...one would assume ...everything is as it should be. One note: On mine ...the actuator by the heater core only operates when I switch to off. Closes the blend door ...I'm assuming. Then again ...with out the book and with no experts here to guide me ....maybe thats why I have no heat.

[Knightmayre]

I'm running a 180 stat, and mine's still a bit cold.
I get the best heat by running it on vent also.
I get some heat from the drivers floor side, but it seems to come out in a weird place as far as I remember.

My rear heater will throw out cold air for at least 30 mins, then it starts getting nice n warm. Mine is a plumbing nightmare & I couldn't work out how the system works at all.

[paradiddle]

I was just about to go on a 3000 mile trip last year when I noticed
a antifreeze leak by the rear wheel. Rotted heater hose/tube. It's very common. As far as I can see there are no valves that are needed. You just got to reconnect.

Seeing I live in a cold place I decided to fix it. I used 3/4 roll copper tubing from Home Depot and 3/4 Heater hose and spliced into the both ends. Good heat. I even run a 180 deg stat and it was mighty cold up here this year.

As far as your cold air problem, a lot of times you got to check that your heat flow isn't mixing with cold air. Make sure the little doors open and close as they should. Other than that It would be standard things like heater control valve, thermostat, plugged heater core.

[pfogle]

If it's unhooked chanced are the core is bad, and someone didn't want to replace it, so they bypassed it..... I would flow test, and pressure test the rear heater core before hooking it back up.