taurus heater core problems solved

I post this in hopes it might help some other poor soul who might have the same issues as I and I pray that carma may save me from any other problems down the road.

I bought a 99 taurus SE w/3.0 motor. when I bought it I was warned by the seller there was a problem with the heater or thermostat switch, in other words the heater did not blow hot air. Worst case senerao bypass the heater core and dress warm 4 months out of the year.

Thinking I was getting a good deal at the price I bought the car on the spot.
Oh, well I needed a car with better gas millage so I figured how hard could it be?
If u are reading this I need not answer the obvious.

So, back to the story. I bring the car home and start doing the obvious remedies thermostat, cooling flush, water pump, etc., and still coming up short I let my wife drive it around town for short trips thinking it was ok, most likley just a air flow door stuck. WRONG! So very very very wrong..

To my horror I get a call with what sounded to me from my wifes description the symptoms of severe overheating regardless of the temp gage reading normal. I told her to shut it off wherever she was immediately.
When I got to the car I refilled the coolant and started it. "The coolant was empty!"
The motor run a little rough and some white smoke was coming from out of the exaust that progesivily got worse after driving a few miles. Now water was dribbling from the tail pipe at a considerable rate. Checking the oil, revealed water also.

Head gasket failure at the very least and more than likely worse., much worse.I do not know if the head gasket was the cause or the effect of the incident but I do know it was not a stuck air flow door under the dash.
After several hours of research on the subject I come to the simple conclusion that Ford drooped the ball on the entire heating/ cooling system from get go. At least on this particular model. Now we are up to speed I will get to the stuff that may or may not help your particular situation.

Armed with my new found knowledge of Fords design flaws, little more than a hundred bucks, and a healthy fear of my wife doing her own car shopping, I went to work.

I started with trashing all the heater hose T's and hose itself from the water pump to the fire wall or heater core inlet/outlet nipples back out the fire wall to the thermostat housing.Throw all of this junk in the trash. Ford used metal tubing and T's fitted to 5/8" heater hose. The metal on this set up rusts and the particles clog the cooling vents in the heater core, thus the problem of no heat. On top of this, the heater core is isolated from ground, meaning; "it is not touching anything metal on the vehicle", this causes a electrical field build up and the metal heater core becomes positively charged. when this happens the metal decomposes or begins to scale or flake off adding to the particles from the rusting tubes and T's.

To solve this I hose clamped one end of a piece of heavy speaker wire to one of the heater core nipples sticking out of the fire wall and the other end of the wire to the chassis as to ground the heater core to the rest of the car.

Next I removed the thermostat from the housing and replace the housing with out the thermostat in it. "I had already replaced the thermostat in my first attempt to fix the problem so I set it aside for later. you may need to replace yours. I then found a good drain pan and pulled the bottom radiator hose located on passengers side front of car under bumper so to let the rest of the coolant out of the system.

Next I went to the part store where I bought 8 or 10 feet of 5/8" heater hose., "inside diameter is 5/8".
8 pcs. of good hose clamps with 5/16" slotted hex head sized for the hose.

I bought 2 cooling system flush kits for around 4 or 5 bucks each. " they come with 3 or so sized heavy plastic T's each with a threaded end for a garden hose connection." The 2 5/8" T's are what your looking for.

I bought a bottle of cooling system flush for 4 or 5 bucks.
and a bottle of "BAR'S LEAKS" block seal for I think 10 or so dollars.

AutoZone stocks all of this but I'm sure all the other retailers do too. The Bar's leak product is the only thing I cannot say if other retailers carry or not and I suggest you use this stuff as it worked for me.
I also bought a new thermostat gasket and I suggest you do the same. You will also need to go to a appliance store and buy a water supply hose for a washing machine It has 2 female hose fittings one on either side and about 4 foot long.

Back at the car I hooked one end of my 10 foot hose to the bottom nipple of the heater core, "from the fire wall" and a hose clamp and tightened it good leaving the hex head of the clamp at about the 10 a clock position so I could get to it later if i had to.

next I measured out about 3 feet or so and cut the hose. slipped on another hose clamp and opened one of my flush kits I bought. found the 5/8" T fitting and connected to the hose from the heater core. slipped another hose clamp on the remaining hose, connected to other end of the T and started laying the hose out where it needed to go back to the water pump, gave my self a few inches and cut the hose. slipped another hose clamp on and connected to water pump
repeated the exact same process on the other heater core nipple , terminating the other end to the thermostat housing intake.

found the screw on caps from both flush kits and capped both of the T's and reconnected the lower radiator hose.
filled the coolant tank with tap water from the garden hose and started the car adding water as needed. I let it run until warm and shut it down pulled the lower hose off let it drain into pan and left it off.. I then unscrewed the cap on one of he new T's and hooked the water hose up with the provided coupling turned on the water and let it go. I took my long needle nose and gently clamped one side of the T and then the other so to force the water through both directions. I repeated the process on the other side.

next I replaced the caps with a washing machine water supply hose that I had in the shed,"this hose has to female hose fittings each going to the screw on end of the Ts, completing the factory set up I scrapped at the first. I connected the lower hose and put my bottle of flush in the tank and topped it off with water.
I followed the directions of the flush to the T and also the directions on the bar's leak product exactly as they suggested and low and behold shes been running fine ever since.
I can't believe it worked either espically from the amount of water coming from the exaust pipe and the oil but it did and has been running strong for about 25k miles. I do keep my foot out of it though and check fluid levels every day. A small price to pay considering the allternitive.

Good luck and god bless

People have had all kinds of issues with this heater set-up, good to see yours is up and running, as for the grounding issue, I'm thinking possibly Ford either incorporated a fix for it or there was a service bulletin, someone will know further info.

i had the same problem i have a 99 and no heat i got rid of the metal lines replaced the thermostat and flushed the h core now i have heat i would advise any 1 to do this thanks

My father has a 03 Taurus and this problem just recently occurred. He went and bought a new thermostat, but it was broken. Then I bought him another thermostat and a gasket. We changed it out but the problem was still there. So we checked all the fuses, thinking one of the fuses for heating was short. We checked all the fuses and non of them were short. Do you think it's the same problem with what you encountered?

My father has a 03 Taurus and this problem just recently occurred. He went and bought a new thermostat, but it was broken. Then I bought him another thermostat and a gasket. We changed it out but the problem was still there. So we checked all the fuses, thinking one of the fuses for heating was short. We checked all the fuses and non of them were short. Do you think it's the same problem with what you encountered?

Is the problem with your father's car that there is no air movement, or that the air is not hot? The reason I ask is the temperature of the air is not controlled by the fuses, so since you looked toward the fuses, I'm thinking maybe your issue is the blower isn't working.

Also, FWIW, fuses are good when they are shorted. It's when they go open circuit that there is a problem. ;)

-Rod

Oh there he goes again, getting all technical and stuff, telling us there is nothing wrong with having shorts in our fuses, and leaving all of us with our wires in a bunch.:)

I like your solution, I have the same problem with my 02. So far I have flushed and changed thermostats twice. Glad I read this post cause I was wondering if I could trash that metal heater hose manifold bypass junk. I am curious:runaround: where exactly did you place your t's for the crossover. I like the Washing machine hose idea, just want to know where exactly you placed it.
Thanks for the barrs leak tip I think I am just starting to have overheat/headgasket problems.

Is the problem with your father's car that there is no air movement, or that the air is not hot? The reason I ask is the temperature of the air is not controlled by the fuses, so since you looked toward the fuses, I'm thinking maybe your issue is the blower isn't working.

Also, FWIW, fuses are good when they are shorted. It's when they go open circuit that there is a problem. ;)

-Rod

There is no hot air coming through, just cold air. We are just going to get a heater you plug into the cig. lighter. For now. We shall try and do the procedure stated by boobtube.