Flushing A Heater Core

all right guys so we're working on a 13 Ram uh 2500 uh it's got the 67 cumins in it and it come in with a it's got a couple complaints one of these complaints is low heat out of the dash or no heat out of the dash uh we got the truck sitting here warming up um it's almost warmed up now it's about 165 so we'll uh bump the old cruise up here and uh get her heating up a little bit uh I've got a more coupler in here we'll stick it in the vent kind of see what's going on uh grabbed a scan tool too see if there's any codes in the HVAC controller and we'll kind of take it from there so with a truck sitting here at an idle uh engine temp 188 uh blower speed on low we're able to get about 125 so typically if there is a flow problem through the heater core it's going to be more evident on the higher blower speeds uh simply because it'll it'll radiate the heat quicker from the heater core so we'll see and usually you can tell because our our temperature will drop right right clean off so I'll leave that up on high here for a few minutes where we can see we're already dropping pretty rapidly and I I can feel it you know it starts out nice and hot you turn the blower speed up on high then it it drops right down or start starts to cool off very rapidly and we can see that there and the uh coolant temp on the truck stays the same so about 190 so it is fully warmed up 60° here in the shop uh I did run the blend doors through their through their Paces everything works like I said I don't suspect anything there down to about 117 right now we'll see where this steady out at looks like about 116 is where it's steadying out at uh engine fully warmed up add an idle blow around High non vents let's say we go out and uh check our heater core hoses see if we can learn something there so I'll try to do this the best I can I don't know if you guys can see it uh we'll check the inlet of the heater core versus the outlet hopefully you can see it see see what we can do holler them out to if I got to kind of a pain to get under there this is going in it's just on hose mind you going in about about 148 149 trying to get on the outlet right now seems to be about the same yeah about 147 148 I don't know if you guys could hear me this thing running uh but our Inlet and Outlet temperature seem to be about the same you know 150 almost 148 147 somewhere in there uh I suspect uh because there is no temperature drop across in that there's probably no flow through the heater core so uh I think the most logical thing to do at this point is try to unhook those hoses I let it cool down for a while here just prob I got some pressure on it a little bit of pressure on it you know obviously we check make sure the cooling stuff's full uh let it cool down a little bit see if we can't get those unhooked and uh see if we can get some flow through that heater core and you know make an assessment from there and see if we you know gain anything this is probably going to make a freaking mess I tell you that much so the one heater hose fitting up here it's held on with a plastic Quick Connect so cross our fingers that don't break the other one is just a clamp try to get these off and uh get the hoses worked off them and then we'll use our oh I've got a little air pressure water pressure tool I think we might have used it in one video uh for flushing heater cors and radiators and stuff where we can add some water and air pressure let's see if we can't get this hose clamp off first a little snug well heater hos is a little bit swollen so it doesn't uh want to come off hose all the way so we'll see if we can't crack the hose loose was a little nice get that clamp off I had no idea how long that uh bip nipple is to get this hose off fig what we'll do is I I'll work on getting this off and then we'll just clamp or yeah clamp them off we'll plug them off with uh got some plastic stops to keep the block from draining losing any coolant so there she goes okay that one's loose let that clamp go uh get the cap ready looks to be about the right size make sure we got no more pressure here need to make that mistake cuz she's still toasty I was going to wait a while but I don't have a ton of time all right look at that minimum mess so that hose is off like I say the other one that sits back here is on a uh quick disconnect and those things scare me because you get near them and they break um so I'm going to try to just hold it with one hand work the hose off with the other and not pull it up off from uh the nipple that sits on simply I just don't want it to break so that's going to be my that's my plan all right let's see here I don't know where my light went lost my light already get on oh I can just about reach it oh there missions crap on here this thing ain't been deleted yet I'm kind of surprised almost everybody around here has a delete kit on there six sevens and dur Maxes and all that stuff all right what pull that no so this clamp is a little bit different style this one comes off pretty easy so stick that one down the hose see see if I can't just work the hose loose off the uh Quick Connect spting here learn pretty quick the unless you have to fiddle with something better off you are that little guy feels like he's going to come right off so let me get a uh hopefully this one will cover that up cuz they're probably going to spill a little coolant this one looks like it might be a little bit big dig through my assortment here got backup it's not even peeing out of there probably because it's up so high how hot think hotter than heck well that was a little too loose anyways well tell you what it's not uh it's not petering out of that one yet so I'm not going to worry about covering it up [Music] maybe see if this red one fits there we go so she's covered up uh this hose is kind of short as far as getting onto it uh to blast it out maybe oh it's going to make a mess I'll tell you that we'll uh drain a little bit of about right now I see must be somebody's already been here because this heater hose has a zip tie on it it's supposed to go on this stud and I see the whole uh transmission dipstick tube the nut on it loose and everything so I don't know if somebody's over here doing some fiddlin or what so we're going to be using our super high powerered water cannon uh so at any rate we' got the water valve gives it some flow and we got some air makes it pretty effective you got to be kind of careful though uh you know our water pressure alone here is about 60 PSI uh so you got to be you know you got to be concerned with you know how much flow you put to it particularly if you're uh dealing with a heater cord that is plug plug uh because I imagine at some point you can just explode it um hang on there little fell and then you know our air pressure is OB seeing here also so what I'll do I got a couple hose extensions I put on I don't clamp them uh so these are just uh some 5/8 hose and these are 5/8 you know Ma ends I stick them on there I assume you know if our pressure got out a hand these would probably just blow apart also don't attach him to the tool either I just stick the nozzle of the tool up there we're going to flush it one way and then flush it the next and it makes a mess but you know it is what it is so I've got both my hose extensions hooked up we'll do the short one first so it's going to be the inlet side uh the other hose you know I'd show you CU everybody's going to be concerned with what comes out of it well frankly you can't see you know just it comes out it's so turbulent from the water and the air you really can't tell the only way you can tell is if we got good heat when we're done uh so I stick that hose pointing down because it does come out very violently and you know if I get it up where you can see it it'll be making a mess so but who knows this could get extreme anyways um it's always my Habit to make sure that the heater core is empty first so I'll just put some air to it all right so that way there when you first put water to it doesn't completely you know shock it and blow everything apart so you got to be careful you should probably have some regulated air if you can't control yourself and yes water is going to get on everything it's not going to hurt anything so I'll start out with a little trink of water first and I just kind of surge it through there [Music] I just hold it but it just it just agitates what it does seems to be a little more than just a you know a garden hose so I'll dig up the other hose we'll do it the other way and then I just slowly increase the water flow and you know just kind of surge it through the heater core a little exchange here you know again before I add water to it I just make sure that it's blown out add some water is Josh pick that pick that hose up a little bit so they can see how it's blowing out of there keep [Music] coming so that's what that looks like all right so that's pretty much that I'll continue to kind of go back and forth with it until I feel that the flow is unrestricted it doesn't feel too awful bad right now um going that direction like guess it would be backwards it uh did seem to go a bit easier uh and like I said I'll just continue to kind of flip flop and then basically I just get to where I run a full stream of water through it and I don't hit any air on it because that's a that's a huge restriction the system so uh usually when I'm do an air I don't do it much more uh I don't do I don't use a heavier water flow than what I was just showing you uh because if you go full you know full on Water full on air there's just too much restrictions and too much of a chance of blowing the heater core apart uh you know when I do radiators it's a little bit different but you know the price of Radiators nowadays you don't you don't uh flush much usually just you know Chuck them in trash see this one we just did a there it is yeah so that actually feels a lot better this is the first one we did and I can tell just by how much pressure it puts back on my hand that it's uh has improved some flow so I let the hose fill up a little bit of water and then blast it through there seems to give it a pretty good shot so some heater cords you just can't flush they just don't they just don't flush well so now I'll just stick full water to it yeah we see we got water running out pretty [Music] well yeah we'll do it the other [Applause] Direction water pull out good and clean like I say very rarely can you actually see anything come [Music] out I'll do it one more time and we'll hook it up and see what we got [Music] kind of extreme all right so that is that um it's still toasty back here like I said you can use just a garden hose and then a blow nozzle you know if you don't have that tool there um I'll put a link to that tool in the description I think we carry those in our Amazon store is there a hook give me that Red Hook there with get our other hoses off here cooled down kind of scrunched on there a little bit get this hook back up let the truck warm back up and see if we made any improvements hopefully we have say some of the some of the Chrysler um you know heater cors I've tried to do like in Liberties and stuff they just don't they don't like to flush they don't work out well you end up changing them get her fired back up here we'll take our uh same thermal couple here this down in the dash so these things are wicked cheap if you don't have a good uh thermal couple I mean not that this is a good one but it's as it's as good as any um I think these things I mean these are wicked cheap like less than 30 bucks uh it comes with a couple probes uh this probe I had to buy separate but again that was like it was super cheap uh they're kind of a handy Tool uh we use them a lot doing AC work verify you know Inlet Outlet temperatures of evaporators honestly see what are we at here 156 we got to wait for it to kind of heat up a little bit we'll uh oops my foot off the brake that'll work we'll bumper up [Applause] here we'll let her get heated up let the air get worked out of the evapor or out out the heater core and uh we'll see what our Max reading is we're only at 160 right now it's only been a minute or so I think we've already surpassed our initial reading and we're on the rise can't tell my hands are a little bit cold I just washed them so they're a little Little D still but we'll let her get up to the 180 whatever it was at have to look back on the footage what what were we at 1 112 or something I guess it was I don't know I'll look back and see about 176 right now still on its way up and now the dash are about uh almost 140 still on the climb here noticeably warmer you know just sticking your hands in front of the vents a lot warmer uh so I think 116 right is that what I already said was our Max before so we've already you know got a 20° increase here all right so it looks like the thermostat is cycled mons uh cuz it came up to like 192 and then it came back down to 188 so I would say we're fully warmed up we're holding about uh 145 starting to come down a little bit because I dropped the idle down so we'll see where that steadies out at so it seems like to hang around this 140 Mark kind of goes up and down I think it's cool it temperature changes uh yeah right now we're 192 think if we bring the idle up you know get a little more flow to that heater [Applause] core it's hot in here I'll put it that way 140° air temperature I was looking at Chrysler's uh looking to see what their minimum spec was uh they're saying for 60° ambient air they want to see 144 minimum coming out of the floor vent of course we can test that to see if that's any different but I don't know if they're using like you know a thermal couple or if they're using an infrared cuz if we shoot this with an infrared um I imagine it's going to be a lot hotter it's going to read hotter I don't know why Infrareds always read differently maybe surface temp instead of air temp I I don't know I'm not a rocket surgeon but we can compare the difference there uh cuz what are they saying uh blah blah blah use a test thermometer is all it says check temperature of the air being discharged from the floor Outlets but you can see we're about uh about 144 and that's at the center vent so we can try this we'll put it on the floor oh I got the AC on what a thunder be my scan tool bumped it we'll see what we have at the floor to see if there is any difference all right so checking it at the floor we're at 144 kind of hanging around there that's where a truck had an idol it's going up slowly like I say you know according to service information with our ambient temp that is where we're supposed to be at so and I know somebody's going to ask about this uh as far as the infrared gun versus uh the thermal couple I don't know why they read different but I know one of you guys do or multiple ones of you guys do and you're going to answer that question so right now we're at 141 but if we use um infrared gun we'll watch this it'll probably slowly reach coolant temp you know coolant operating temperature which right now is about 192 so we can see we're rolling about 144 out the vent but we can also see our our thermal gun here is [Applause] climbing never really looked into it just for accurate readings I've always used um you know a thermal couple so we're getting up there [Applause] now and I've got it I don't know a few inches [Applause] away turn this little guy back on hold on one handed here so 145 and I I have tested that probe uh you know in boiling water uh to make sure it's accurate you see there we got about 180 our coil temp is 192 and that's going to kind of stop there about 180 it seems seems to be the max yeah 187 was the max wherever we got that reading at no I don't have a [Applause] laser there we go like I said that'll come up to coolant temperature so we're at 190 coolant temp is at 188 so you can see that there for what it's worth thermal coupler is at 147 why I don't know well I know it's hotter than heck in here and uh this guy should be pretty happy with those results cuz what are we 30 degrees warmer than we were when we started all right so we'll leave it at that I am actually cracking a sweat in here it's hot uh a whole lot hotter than it was when we started uh so a couple things uh first of all the thermal gun business why does this read different than a thermal coupling I know you're going to answer it and somebody's going to save me the time from actually Googling it but it does the same thing with I shouldn't say that it seems to be more accurate on the low end of the scale so like if I use this you know a thermal couple and then the um you know the infrared gun on an AC system you know if I got an AC system that's putting out let's say you know like 38 degrees on a probe and I check it with the infrared it's usually within you know give or take a degree so it seems to be on the heat aspect of it where it changes I don't know but uh so you'll put that in the comments we'll share that with everybody that'll be kind of fun to learn uh second thing is why is the heater core plugged well there's probably sediment in the cooling system and yes it's going to happen again and yes theoretically it should have the entire cooling system flushed um in order to you know make this short-term gain a long-term gain uh and make it last because obviously it does not need a new heater core uh and everything here Works uh so I'll suggest add to the customer this is a it is his plow truck work truck so and we are getting bombed out there with snow I assume he wants it back ASAP uh the money lights on I got to check that out see what he's got going on with that I see the TPMS lights on too um so I'll see if he wants that fixed also main concern for today was is to get some heat because it was cold and especially when you get outside and it's only you know 10° out you know the performance of the heater system naturally degraded some as a result of that so that's it there is no cabin air filter on this I did look I was waiting for it to cool down to see if that would help increase some of the air flow but I'll be quite honest with you now that it blows hot the air flow thing isn't much of a concern and uh without comparing it to another vehicle another truck just like this I don't know what the air flow is supposed to to be as far as intensity uh hopefully it wasn't blown into the microphone on the camera the whole time so you couldn't hear us but we'll leave it at that so if you got no heat inside your truck uh it's possible that you have a heater core that's starting to plug or broken blend door you know a host of other things but in this video it was just the heater core being plugged I'll put a link to the this little guy where you can grab those I did buy this on Amazon it was super cheap uh the host clamp players I used and the scan tool if you want to see it maybe an infrared gun and of course the high powered heater core flusher I'll make sure those are all in a link in the description so you can pick them up yourselves if it's something that you want to use at home or in your shop so Google+ Facebook check us out there if you haven't done that and just remember viewers if I can do it you can do it thanks for watching [Music] he

Channel: South Main Auto LLC

Views: 450,450

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Id: 1R0hVEFZgrw

Length: 29min 34sec (1774 seconds)

Published: Sat May 06 2017