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Anonymous Posted on Sep 26, 2010

1986 chevy elcamino. i am having a problem with the heater blowing only cold air. i changed the thermostat but it did no good. someone told me maybe it is the blend door. how can i tell if it is and how to go about doing this?

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  • Chevrolet Master 6,982 Answers
  • Posted on Sep 26, 2010
Anonymous
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First thing you want to do is check the heater control valve on the engine side of the firewall attached to one or both of the heater hoses. Coolant must pass through it for the heater to work. If the valve is good, make sure you are getting flow through the heater core (you can run a garden hose through it) "blend door" is inside the heater box and is moved either by a small vacuum chamber (looks a lot like the vacuum advance mechanism on older chevy distributors). or it is moved by a cable. Whichever you have, it can be found on the heater box under the dashboard.
Easiest way to check them is to watch the heater box and with the engine running move the heater control Whichever type of actuator you have it should move the arm for the door when you do that. If you find one that does not work (for vacuum ones only) use a hand held vacuum pump and try to make it move. If it does, it's good if not, you either have a bad dash control or disconnected vacuum supply.
If cable type, find out why the cable isn't moving.

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