1988 Towncar Heater

My 1988 towncar isn't putting out hot air at all. I Just replaced the radiator and filled with anti-freeze and water, so I know it has plenty of coolant fluid, from what I am gathering it may be a vacuum problem. Any recommendations on how to check this? Also when I put the heater bottom control on floor setting the heater motor stops all together, on mix and defrost blower motor runs fine just want warm up. Any and all help would be greatly appreciated
Thanks

Don't know much about 1988, but if it's like most older cars the hot water control valve may be mounted directly inline on one of the heater hoses just before it passes through the firewall to the heater core.

Open the hood, look for the heater hoses (99% of them are on the passenger side of the engine compartment) going from the engine, through the firewall. If you can see a valve on one of the hoses, you need to make sure it's working. There's usually a cable that turns the valve from Open to Closed, the other end of the cable connects to the Climate Controls.

With the engine warm and running, operate the Temperature control from cold to hot while watching that valve, the cam on the valve should physically spin, opening and closing the gate valve as you change from hot to cold, cold to hot.

Look closely at the cam on the top of the valve, there's a shaft coming from the inside of the valve (connected to the gate) through the valve body, to the cam. Where the shaft exits the valve body it may be heavily corroded or rusted preventing the valve from operating. If this is the case, a bit of Penetrating Oil and some gentle force may free stuck valve, restoring hot water flow to the heater core. Worst case, the valve may be leaking after it's freed and need replacement.

If there's a vacuum operation involved to open/close that valve, that will be the next step in diagnosis.

AFTERTHOUGHT:
Many folks completely bypass the heater core if it was once diagnosed as leaking inside the car. If this is your situation, you won't find those heater hoses connected through the firewall as described earlier. Instead, the hoses will be connected to one-another from the waterpump back the the engine block.

the coolant temp sensor that is inline on the heater hose (should have 2 vac lines and 2 wires on it) when it doesn't detect warm coolant it will turn off the fan for the floor/heat setting.

If you are getting air flow on other settings but it doesn't get hot, you may have a blend door problem. There are a few fixes for this, some can be found at www.lincolnsonline.com I just pulled the vac line off of it and it closed. This works if you don't mind the heat being full hot all the time. The vac line is behind the glove box you should be able to see it without removing the box.

http://www.damphyne.com/car/vac.JPG <-- this vac line

Hi, I have a 1993 Town Car I recently put a 1995 4.6 replacement motor in and to my dismay after hooking everything up there was a leak from the firewall just under the hose inlets. I presumw my core is rotton. I need some advise on how to proceed changing out the core. any help will be deeply appricated, Thanks again, Robin

Hi, I have a 1993 Town Car I recently put a 1995 4.6 replacement motor in and to my dismay after hooking everything up there was a leak from the firewall just under the hose inlets. I presumw my core is rotton. I need some advise on how to proceed changing out the core. any help will be deeply appricated, Thanks again, Robin


Replacing a heater core is a lot of work (if this is your problem). it requires removing the dashboard to get to it. once you do get to it, its very simple to remove. but most of the work is taking apart that dashboard. i did it with my 95 town car and A LOT of patience was required haha. so when you do get the dash apart, the heater core is easy to take out. to be on the safe side, drain your coolant from the system and your core so you don't have anti-freeze going all over the car when you unhook the two heater hoses that go into the core. good luck :)

I have almost the exact same problem. I replaced the piece thats in the heater hose to the core with a bypass that I controlled the flow of the water with. Sill no hot air. I can hear the "door" open when I change the temp selector from cold to hot but nothing. I was getting some remotely warm air time to time but now...nothing. I fear the core is clogged. I recently had the manifold gasket replaced by a friend and I fear he used their bad well water to refill the radiator. That water will corrode and eat everything metal. Any suggestions?

Removing the vacuum line MAY do it, HOWEVER, the vacuum motor that the line goes into, comes off with 2-8MM screws, and on my 86 TC Cartier, the bar that goes over the Blend Door shaft had slipped off and I had to get it back on the servo, it was not to hard, and VOILA !!!! It worked, and while I had mine off, I put a small bend in the servo shaft to prevent the blend door shaft from being able to get off again!
Good Luck
Steve-O

Heater core gone?

Hi, I have a 1993 Town Car I recently put a 1995 4.6 replacement motor in and to my dismay after hooking everything up there was a leak from the firewall just under the hose inlets. I presumw my core is rotton. I need some advise on how to proceed changing out the core. any help will be deeply appricated, Thanks again, Robin
HERE IS A LINK, CLICK IT, AND YOU WILL GET HOW-TO INSTRUCTIONS
http://www.lincolnsonline.com/tech/00101.html