Cold air from heater vents

SO I just bought a 1997 Ford Windstar that has 247,000 miles. When I bought the car, the girl told me she was selling it because it has no heat and we live in Michigan with temps in the teens right now. I have done some investigating and troubleshooting and have discovered the following:

-when the vehicle is at running temp, the upper radiator hose is warm (not hot) so it makes me think the problem is not the thermostat.

-I already know about the blend door and when I switch the temp from hot to cold I can hear a clicking sound. It clicks about 4 or five times but still blows out cold air

-the defroster blows cold too, so it doesn't sound like the vacuum problem

-the fan has strong air flow at all settings

-antifreeze is at the regular level

I am beginning to think that it is the heater core but I am not sure: where it is located, if there is a way to test to see if it is definitely the issue, or if it is something else altogether. Can anyone help me?
:banghead:

ok one trick to try to rule out thermostat is to open the coolant tank but seeing yours is a 97 it may have a radiator cap.. If it does it wont work coolant will shoot out once it get warm.. I am thinking air in lines...You can put your hands on the heater core lines to see if they get hot. in and out lines..Still might be your blend door . Change the thermostat. get the higher grade one only 3 bucks more.. Napa being best choice. Ask the guy and you can compare the weight to the lower price ones. The best one will be heavy.. Really I done this myself.. Sorry for not being able to help more.. If you dont have the radiator cap then open the coolant tank before it gets hot. That helps air get out of the system..

i also would change thremo if you got all air out? so thremo would be the cheapest way to tell if it's going to heat up.

-I already know about the blend door and when I switch the temp from hot to cold I can hear a clicking sound. It clicks about 4 or five times but still blows out cold air



From your description about the clicking sound, I think it's the blend door actuator motor assy. I just fixed my 2000 Windstar with the exact same problem. Blew only cold air and clicking sound heard when moving temp selector switch from cold to hot or vice versa.

As long as your blend door itself isn't broken or jammed, this $40 part should fix the problem and was very easy to replace (at least on the 2000 model)... GLTY

As far as the blend door motor is is an easy fix.. I have replaced mine as well.. Over looked you clicking issue.. Yes it will click a few times and then stop.. Sometimes it wont.. But What happens is the plastic teeth on the gears break.. Thought about going to a hobby shop and getting the replacement gears than realized how many different sizes they were. I would have been there all day.. Just found it easier to replace..

So I talked to the previous owner, and she said that if she "moved the temperature selector from hot to cold quickly/back and forth", sometimes it would come on and have heat, but after a few months it didn't work anymore. Does it sound like that actuator more now?

certainly the clicking noise is definitely broken gears on the actuator. easily fixable. need 2 things. a radio removal tool $4-5 at Walmart or auto parts store and the replacement actuator from Ford roughly $35 including shipping.

So I talked to the previous owner, and she said that if she "moved the temperature selector from hot to cold quickly/back and forth", sometimes it would come on and have heat, but after a few months it didn't work anymore. Does it sound like that actuator more now? That is exactly how mine failed on the wifes van. This fall when moving the heat setting to warm from the normal cold setting for A/C, I noticed a little clicking sound and no warm air. I moved the slider rapidly back and forth a few times and had warmish heat - but not fully hot. After a few days of this, I tried fiddling with the selector switch some more, the clicking became louder and lasted longer. It never gave warm or hot air after that, only blew cold. The Heater Blend Door Actuator fixed me right up. Paid about 36 bucks at O'Reilly's for a Dorman branded unit. Perfect fit and did the trick. I took apart the culprit item after removing, sure enough - there were two broken teeth on the smallest gear, barely noticable w/o a magnifying glass.

Certainly points toward the blend door actuator, aka drive mechanism.....
It should not click......as mentioned....broken teeth will click.........but good gears turning should not.
Also "move....back and forth" sounds like she was getting it to work by getting the blend door drive motor to go back and forth and catch on what teeth were still there.

I would suggest that if you can "move the temp back and forth" and get heat......leave it alone in that position until you can get it fixed.

As you are learning, the blend door actuator/motor is a common failure problem on this vehicle - you can do a search and find many, many posts on this topic. As stated by others, you should not be hearing the clicking noise; the clicking noise is a symptom of the failure. Hopefully you just need to replace the blend door actuator, which is pretty simple and inexpensive. However, if you find that the part on the blend door where the actuator shaft fits into is broken, then you have a major expense repair on your hands to replace the entire plenum assembly which includes the blend door. This is what happened to me a couple years ago on my 1999 Windstar and it cost about $2,000 to tear into the instrument panel and replace the plenum assembly. Good luck!

Guys! I found a kit that repairs the broken blend door problem with no dash removal and takes about an hour. The kit is called the HeaterTreater and they have installation videos on youtube. check it out: www.heatertreater.net