Heater is weak... 1993 Escort

My heater is weak in my 93 Escort. Let me update you all on the history on the car. When I bought the car it had a little over 100k on it. It now has 107k on it. I bought the car in May. The guy I bought it from had told me he had a water pump and timing belt installed 6 months prior. The T-Belt was not installed properly so it was slapping, but I fixed that. The tensior wasnt preloaded properly. Anyway from day 1 the heater has been weak to non existent. The antifreeze is in good shape, the blower blows great (for a Ford). Any ideas as to what I should do? I was thinking of popping the heater hose from the water pump, and pulling the other heater hose off to run water through it see if I could flush it, but honestly the car has 107k, the core shouldnt be plugged this early. Well maybe since it is 14 years old.. I dunno. Oh I just recalled another detail, the cooling fan has been hot wired so when the ignition is turned on the fan starts. I have tried checking the relay's (the two below the air box, the one in the fuse box under the hood) I have replaced and re-replaced the relays, tested them, arg Fords!! LOL Any help on the cooling fan issue, what should I do with that? The engine never gets up past the n in normal, usually never comes off the line now that it has gotten colder out. In the summer it ran upto 'o' on the temp. Am I really facing the possibility of replacing the bloody core *sigh*. I have to put an auto tranny in a Mazda so the thought of this is making my mind ache.. so any help is appreciated. Please be gentle, thanks!

I'm looking at a diagram of the cooling fan. It seems there is a 40 amp cooling fan fuse in the engine compartment. Then, it goes through the ignition relay and on to the high and low speed fan relays. Both relays are controlled by the EEC module. Have you checked the electronic engine control module?

The issue with the heater could be caused by the thermostat being stuck open. Back flush the heater core and replace the thermostat. That should solve your heater problem. Wouldn't think you'd have to replace the core.

Dunno what to say about the cooling fan. I'd just wire it with a toggle switch and turn it on whenever the A/C was on or whenever the situaton demanded it. Sounds like you have tried just about everything with it.

I have not checked the EEC yet.. I seriously doubt I ever will. I only paid $200 for the car to begin with and its book value is only like $800 or so.. so spending a ton of money on it isnt my thing. I was thinking about why a toggle switch was suggested, and then I thought that would be a good idea to get the engine to temp and run the fan when I needed it. I know the termostat is not sticking because I was watching the temp of the housing wth a laser temp sensor and around 210 or so the upper rad hose got real hot, where before it was coldish. The EEC is the unit that controls the EDIS system right? I figured that was fine since the car starts and runs great. I get mid 30's usually since it is mostly on the highway when I drive it *shrugs*. Oh and the car does not have a/c at all. It is a plain jane model, you might recall my post from May about adding the factory tach, or you may not.. lol Do I need the high and low speed relays at all under the air box since I dont have a/c? Can the EEC cause a stumble under hard acceleration in 4th or 5th gear on the freeway? Its 1:30 am and so im not thinking too straight about my electronics.. lol Thanks for the added voice .. it helps because when you talk to the car it wont reply.. lol

Unless you are bumper to bumper on the freeway with frequent stops I can see no reason you need the fan at all. It's a must with A/C, but you don't have that. The only time my scort's fan comes on is when I have the A/C on.
Yes, the EEC controls the EDIS. It mainly controls spark advance. The EEC gets it's input from the coolant temperature sensor, Air charge temperature sensor, 02 sensor, Mass air flow sensor, throttle position sensor and crankshaft position sensor. It then controls the spark advance, EGR, Idle air bypass valve, fue injection, upshift designator and electric cooling fans. I'm sure I"ve left something out, but you get the idea. Brain box for the engine.
How did you come out on adding the factory tach? Did you find the right wire to trigger the counter? I've been pulling an all nighter myself. Went down to the Wal-Mart Friday- after- Thanksgiving sale that started at 5 AM.
Wall to wall people at Wally World. Did get a nice liquid crystal display television. It was worth the wait. The entire parking lot was full at 5 AM. Can you imagine? Yeah, the EEC could cause a hard stumble at freeway speeds.
Probably could go to the boneyard and get one on the cheap. Has it ever had spark plug wires? Mine bit the dust at around 100k. At $200 you could afford to put some money into it or not afford to put some money in it. Like they say: If it ain't broke don't fix it. All the best.......Dave

Your engine is overcooling. Search this forum for "overcooling" and you can find some useful info.
I'd bet money that your thermostat housing has a bypass valve stuck open that is preventing the coolant from warming up to normal temperature. It also doesn't help that the fan is always running.
Undo the hot wiring to the fan and get it working normally again.
At the parts stores, ask about a "water outlet" for the engine.... this seems to be how most of them have it listed.

Also make sure you have the right temp thermostat installed... that 210 comment doesn't sound right...

To Mighty, ya I thought it was suppose to open around 190, but I would have to verify. Dave, HUGE success on adding that tach cluster. I had given up until like two weeks ago when I stumbled across a wire that I got clued in on by a little birdy :grinyes: I found out the plugs have to be rewired in the back of the cluster, it took me about 3 hours I would guess when I did it. I lost the clip that holds the speedo cable in the tranny so now its held in by zip ties.. lmao When I got the car it had no first gear so I threw a used 5spd unit in it to the tune of $100. It had a new clutch in it the summer before so I figured didnt need to worry about that. All together with tags and j/y trips, I would guesstimate around $400 in the car now. I was going to throw all new relays in but that scares me because I dont want to put all new parts in when it could be something like a temp sensor *shrugs*. This is what I figured, best have the fan running because it has such low miles, that aluminum gets hot its gonna cause problems im sure. The car is basically a daily driver for me so I dont think that would happen but hey its a ford.. lol Congrats on the wally world trip, where are you from? I dont like participating in the black friday fiasco myself, but hey thats my preference. Now if I could pick up a Canon digital SLR for $400 or more off retail you *might* find me out at 5am.. lol

Oh ya the plug wires have been changed at least once.. but it needs them again, they look like crap. Can we add pictures here, like if I uploded to imageshack so I can show you the cluster?

I just thought of something.. score one for the blond in me.. lol The Mazda 323 I mentioned I need to put a tranny in.. well that one the cooling fan runs all the time too, well I started the car yesterday and idled it for a little bit. Well I checked the heater (kinda cold out) and it was blazing hot! So my point is that my lil poop scooter should be the same way.. im gonna back flush my core today and see what happens. I know if I had a circulation problem it wouldnt run so cool.

If memory serves me correctly it is supposed to be a 180 thermostat.

Update time.. ok I pulled the heater hose going to the temp sensor off.. and some brown murky sh*t starting oozing out. I thought to myself NOT GOOD.. lol So I got the other hose off the water pump and got the hose on it.. I got the most pitifulest trickle out the other side of the core.. so I started doing a combo of water and air (still feeling a little woozy.. lol) and it was still pathetic. So I pulled my hose nozzle off and put the SOB full blast through that core. That water was nasty brown, then it cleared up. Then I crimped the hose and let er go again and it went brown then clear. So needless to say I did that 5-8 more times until the sudden burst was clear not brown. I then ran the water through the hose that leads to the temp sensor and the water coming out at the water pump was brown and green. I thought my goodness looks sure can be deceiving! So I flushed the engine, radiator and core all seperately until it was all cleared out. I then thought since I saw some brown crud near the overflow tube, so I pulled the overflow bottle. OMG that was nasty, no it was beyond nasty. I filled it swished, filled it swished, and 10 times over it poured out brown to black. It has been an eventfull afternoon. Moral of the story is if you pull the cap and it looks green dont believe it until you flush it. It looks like the system has never been flushed in the last 14 years. I started the car to circulate the coolant after I filled it and after it idled for about 5 minutes I had some good hot air blowing out of the defrost! HEAT! YAY! I am going to try to post some pictures below so you all can see my pimped Escort, the brown crap out of the overflow bottle (I poured it onto a white paper towell for contrast), and the tach in action ^;^

Pic#1 Brown crap out of the overflow
http://img114.imageshack.us/img114/8324/s3010044ce2.jpg
Pic#2 Tach in action!
http://img114.imageshack.us/img114/2137/s3010045dh1.jpg
Pic#3 Passenger side pic of the poop scooter
http://img114.imageshack.us/img114/5089/s3010046xc5.jpg
Pic#4 Driver side of the car
http://img114.imageshack.us/img114/2582/s3010047wd1.jpg


**Forgot to ad**
When you see the pass pic of my car, it shows a mirror there, when I first got it it did not have that mirror. I figure all cars need both mirrors and tachs especially if its a 5spd *whispers zoom zoom* ;)

Good job.
Just out of curiousity, does the temp gauge read normal now? On most gauges it will come to rest between the O and R.

Mighty I am about to goto the store, amongst other things, so I will post when I get back and let you know what the car does.

Ok just got back in.. I drove the car in town for the first 6 miles to the store. The gauge sat below the 'N' to the 'N'. After I was done at Wal-Mart I hit the freeway for the 8 miles back, appx since the fwy is kinda out of the way. Hitting the on ramp I saw the gauge hit the 'O' and then come to rest at the 'N' or just slightly below. This is a major improvement over what it was before. I noticed at idle it sits below the 'N' and cruising like I said fluctuates between 'N' and 'O'. My heat is blazing hot now which is really cool. I am wondering if now I have full flow again if the temp sensor will send the signal to the computer that it needs to kick the fan on. I tried unplugging the temp sensor once while the ignition was on to see if the fan would kick on and it didnt. It doesnt matter anyways now since the heat issue is fixed. Who woulda thunk that a 14year old car would have a plugged up heater core. I always thought a plugged heater core would cause an over heating issue, guess I was wrong *shrugs*.:lol:

Good chance that your temp sensor is fried since the circulation was so bad. Probably both of them.
If the fan is running constantly, I am not sure what effect that will have on the temp gauge readings, but I know it should get higher than the N on the gauge.

Sounds like things are coming together... at least the engine runs and the car is driveable. You'll get the rest of it worked out in time :)

What I am kinda wondering is if my fuel economy will improve. I know that when the computer thinks the engine is cold that it will richen the mixture a bit. Although over the summer I got as high as 38 mpgs. It has since come down to about 33-34ish. It might be because I drive the car a little more around town I dunno. Anyway thanks all for letting me blather on about my wonderfull Ford. ^;^

Your all going to laugh at this one!!!! Over the weekend I started smelling coolant in the car. I thought great, but maybe it was smelling like that since it hasnt been used in forever (rusty plug remember?). Ok so I was weary. On my way to school earlier I got a super you can taste it coolant smell in the car followed by steamed windows :banghead:
So.. guess what moi gets to do tomorrow?? Go on take a guess I dare ya.. lol :grinno:

You know.. whoever designed the Escort heater box had to have been high on crack. That ugly SOB took me six hours to get changed!! I finally got so pissed how Ford hid the heater box nuts BEHIND the middle vents I just took my crowbar and busted that up to get to the nuts easier. I dont need the dash vents anyway I mean it is winter after all.. lol I also tweaked the metal brace that holds the heater controls, radio, etc.. just so I can get that darn box out. It all bolted up normally again so I didnt beat it too much. Well I have a heater now thats what counts. I now have to clean all that antifreeze off my windows.. nasty stuff:banghead:. Heres a pic of what I did to my car mid coitus.. lol Told ya I wasnt gentle!!:icon16:

http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/9026/s3010063ru5.jpg

Oh I wanted to add.. I removed the blower motor box as well.. and I found this large chunk of metal in place of where the A/C evap is suppose to go.. so I removed that chunk of metal and now have a little bit stronger of a blower on the defrost. I also notice now when I am on the freeway the thing sits half 'N' to 'O', but when I get off the freeway it comes down to below N.. so it fluctuates temp wise, but it is nice to see it acting "normally".

I think it will be more than a 1 day job by yourself...
Methinks your core may have been plugged on purpose...