The never ending Escort heater saga...

I have a mechanical temperature gauge mounted in the heater hose line(the one from the t.stat hsng.) half way from the t.sender to the actual heater core at the firewall.
I am basing this on the fact that I get HOT! air from my heater..that is when I can keep the engine temperature up.
I can't see no matter how clean your heater core is getting hot air from the core(basically a heat exhanger) with less than these temperatures,
When you get 120 degrees coolant temperature at this point in the hose..VOILA!!..you get HOT AIR! blowing from the heater.
If you don't get 120 degrees you get NOT hot air.Simple.
If you don't get 120 degrees..look elsewhere for your problem.
I am sure you could do this(check this) with one of those "point and shoot" temperture readers.Or another mechanical probe type of temperature reader on top of the hose.Not sure what temp you would need there on top of the hose.A check of an Escort with good heat will help you there.
You could always splice in a gauge like I did.

Let's say you have the 120 degrees and still not enough heat.The core is plugged.Flush it/back flush it..OR do the dirty.Change it.


Problem 3..you have the 120..sometimes..then you lose it.Could be a bad stat OR simply cold air cooling the engine.Cover part of the rad.

I DO KNOW NOW though..after mucho screwing around.You need this 120 degrees there.When the gauge is at 100..the air coming out of the heater is warmish at best.

ROFL...think I will design and build some "rad shutters"..those thermostatically controlled shutters on the front of the rads on large engines to keep them warm.

How do you have the mechanical sending unit set up in the heater hose going to the core? Is it in line like a t-fitting? Maybe it's restricting the flow to the heater core. It must get freaking cold up there in Toronto.
I've heard that hot coolant flows through the heater core all the time and that it is just A "door" that opens and shuts to control the heat. If you've got a 195 degree stat you should be getting much hotter coolant going to the box than 120. What does your temp gauge read? The one on your dash? There's a vapor bypass in the stat housing and you can take the thermostat housing off and shake it. If it rattles the vapor bypass valve is bad and is making the scort run too cool- like you say--120 degrees. Go to the boneyard and pull a thermostat housing with the stat and vapor bypass intact.

What does your temperature gauge on the dash read? Is it on the left side of center? Mine is and the heater will blow you out of the car on the coldest day you can imagine. I've got 140k on my scort and have flushed the cooling system, but never changed the themostat. She will freeze you out on the hottest summer day and blow you out on the coldest winter day. I can't understand why so many people have problems with their heating and airconditoning on the scorts. I just am lucky I guess.

Seems to me that, like you say, put something in front of the radiator to help her hold her heat. I'd cover at least half of it. Maybe 3/4. As long as the temp gauge doesn't come up too far, it seems like something like that would work for you. I can only imagine how cold it must get up in Toronto. We're lucky to get a day cold enough to freeze ice cubes where I live. Do you have to run an engine heater at night to get it to start in the morning? Used to live in Anchorage. Had to have a heater in the engine or you just didn't leave your car out at night. Even the parking meters had receptacles to plug your heater into. One night it got so cold I had to put charcoal briquets in a pan and place it under my engine before she would even turn over. Had to take the battery out and take it inside, too. A lot of people had 2 batteries in parallel. When it got really cold cast iron would shatter like glass if dropped.

Dave..the mechanical t.gauge sender is mounted in-line with a "t" fitting..aimed a little bit down so that it stays immersed in coolant.There is NO restriction to flow.
Toronto is a VERY cold city!..Not so much just for temperature but it is DAMP..of course it is also on Lake Ontario. Temperature wise we see about 15 deg..dropping to about 5..not often going below 0.Most of the winter.Here according to the CAA(Canadian Automobile Association)..everything is "A" ok as the temperaure drops.As the temperature gets close to 0..there are car starting problems..they get calls.At about 0..it gets VERY BUSY!..at -5..pretty much NO cars start here.Figure on waiting several hrs for CAA.At -10.That is about it. -15 practically NO cars will start here outside.Don't even bother to phone CAA.The wait is literally a couple days/garages are too busy to even take your car in.Almost all cars no-starts at that point are electrical/electronic/computer related failures and almost all will start when left in a warm garage to warm up/dry out.
Hot coolant does flow through the heater core at all times.

Rad not old.The rest of the cooling system is new.(Changed it all as preventative maintenance.Stat tested before instalation.Gauge is ok.Temp is ok all year.Winter gauge goes to the n in normal.Almost never above.This does give plenty of heat even there though.
Vapor by-pass thinggy?..Dunno about that for Canadian cars.??Mine is a conventional .stat hsng.Spout for the rad hose,spout for the heater hose.Nothing else.Ditto for a bone yard hsng.that I checked.There are no other passages in these ones.

It is just the cold.I have pinched the rad hose off to prevent any circulation.Pulled the hose just to make sure the coolant is staying in the block and the stat closed.

I have adequate heat,defrost with 120 deg in the heater hose.The car is certainlly not cool..it is warm enough..even going skiing.There is NEVER even a hint of condensation on the oil dipstick or the filler cap.
Maybe I should not even touch it.Lasted this long.Leave it alone.
LOL..the fan wakes up about mid June for a bit..comes on a few times in the summmer with the air on..goes back into HIBERNATION(too cold) about mid Sept.
This Escort is BY FAR! the best car I have been around for cold weather starting down to -30.This car laughs at 0,-5, I have never plugged it in.Once at a ski resort around here the temp plunged from 0 and sun during the day to howling,savage winds,blowing snow..and oh yeah..-35 at nite.Very,very few cars..vehicles started there.The Escort did.ROFL..it creaked so badly it was SCARY.I have the biggest most powerful battery that will fit..plus a spare battery and extreme duty booster cables..When it is -10 here..most people I know..know their car won't start..(they won't) and don't even try.I don't even ski here when it gets to 5,0.Yet I have been toasty warm skiing in the Rockies at -5(dry air).

You already have a temperature gage in that hose. The one that operated the temp gage. (Just trying to save $$$)

The coolant always goes through the heater. There is just a dor that closes.

If the heater core is clogged then it's probable that your gage will say low temp because the coolant can't circulate past the temp sensor.

I have no clue what a 'vapor bypass valve' is. Can someone explain that one? Never heard of such a thing.

About the vapor bypass thing. There was this person whose scort would build up to operating temp idling, but when going down the road their car wouldn't even come close to normal on the gauge. They said it was the VBV. Then, went on about shaking it to see if it was good. I think someone pulled a fast one on me. I shouldn't believe everything I read. Oh well, que sera sera.

True..the factory temp.gauge sender IS ALREADY mounted in the heater hose line nearer to the t.stat.I DO NOT really trust factory guages.(BAD..VERY BAD!! experiences)A mechanical is alwasy best.Especially in the case of this Escort temperature thinggy.
I simply mounted another gauge in this line.
The factory gauge is actually fairly accurate.
The gauge I installed reads pretty much the same.
Both gauges have been checked with a temperture probe type of gauge that I have.This is actually a digital exhaust pyrometer.Used for measuring exhaust gas temperatures,This is an expensive guage that reads up to 2,000 deg and has various probes,thermocouples.

ROFL..yesterday..I tested both these gauges.Toronto was about 30 deg.I had to spend 3 hrs in traffic.

At the very beginning of the "N" in normal there is hot enough air coming from the heater.This is 120 degrees on the mechanical gauge in the dash(read about 1' away from the factory gauge..in the heater hose)

At the "O" in normal the air coming from the heater is HOT!..as in HOT!
This is 150 on the mechanical dash gauge.

Summer time driving the gauge is right in the middle of the normal range.Reading the correct about 190 on the gauge.

The temp would rise to 150 when idling..very slow driving.And drop to 120 when moving along.

I felt the rad a few times all over.It had a uniform temperature.

NO complaints from me yesterday in the Escort heat department.

I tend to turn the heater on the middle fan position for a bit..then off.