does the vert ever warm up?

[nissanconvert]

OK, this is the first winter I've driven the vert and will hopefully be the last after i graduate.Question:Does your vert ever warm up? like to the point of actually needing to turn the heat down? and does the motor temp needle get off the line?

Situation:It's 24 degrees here as Cleveland does at this time of year. I drove for about 1/2 hour to a friends place and back. The entire time I had the heat at max and the fan at full and it was blowing warm at best, like 60 degrees at the vents. The coolant temp needle would only come one bar off the lowest when i turned the heat off for about 5 minutes but dropped back down immediately when i turned the heat back on. The recirc setting was on and the cabin never got very warm at all. My integra at least blew hot air after a while to heat up the cabin. Is the 240 just not enough heat to spare/ is the soft top loosing too much heat/ what is the deal.?

[cmkelly]

My vert blows hot air in Winter and cold air in Summer. Maybe a thermostat problem - stuck open and not allowing the water to heat up?

[94_240sx]

My vert blows hot air in Winter and cold air in Summer. Maybe a thermostat problem - stuck open and not allowing the water to heat up?

Touch both upper and lower radiator hoses and make sure they are hot after engine warms up. Mine blows hot air in winter and cold air in summer too.

[KA-Te]

Yeah my first thought was thermostat too. Or waterpump maybe?

[Eikon]

Thermostat problems simply prevent the coolant from getting to the radiator. That would cause the car to run too hot.

A water pump could be the issue... but your coolant temp gauge would go very high and you would most likely risk overheating because the coolant isnt' circulating through the engine properly. So I don't think that is it either.

My guess is that you need to flush your heater core. It's probably filled up with gunk and stuff.. You could flush your entire system.... probably wouldn't hurt.. but I'd def. try flushing the heater core first.

[biggie]

Yeah, somethings wrong. Was in teh mid-20s here this morning and only had to put the fan on 1 for alittle while.

[94_240sx]

What happens if water pump goes bad? I was always wondering about that. There are blades that turn and that's how coolant circulates. I replaced mine because there was leak from the hole on water pump. Someone at the dealership told me that the hole is there to warn water pump is going bad. To me only thing that can go bad on water pump is seals or bearings if there's any.

Check the color of your coolant. My DD had 'brown' coolant and when I flushed it. Oh my god, it was nasty. Never seen anything like it. Yeah, Eikon has a good point regarding heater core. I forgot about that.

[cmkelly]

I'm certainly no mechanic but I think if a thermostat is stuck open it will cause the heater to take longer to warm up. Thermostats block the flow of coolant to the radiator until the engine has warmed up. When the engine is cold, no coolant flows through the engine. Once the engine reaches operating temperature the thermostat opens. (thank you How Stuff Works)

I've had old cars in the past whose thermostats have either been stuck open (slow heating) or closed (quick overheating). Might be worth looking at. I'd flush the system at the same time.

Good luck.

[Eikon]

CM... he said he drove 30 minutes.. you are right that it takes much longer to warm up a car with no thermostat.. however it should never take 30 minutes. With thermostat.. 5 minutes to get heat.. without thermostat maybe 15 minutes at most I would think. Good point though.

What happens if water pump goes bad? I was always wondering about that. There are blades that turn and that's how coolant circulates. I replaced mine because there was leak from the hole on water pump. Someone at the dealership told me that the hole is there to warn water pump is going bad. To me only thing that can go bad on water pump is seals or bearings if there's any.

To my knowledge.. water pumps give out in three ways. 1.) The seals go bad around the outside and the pump leaks2.) The bearings go bad and the create tons of drag on your belts or just seizes up. 3.) (Rare) The fins rust or corrode away and the pump doesn't push any coolant..

I know #3 all too well.. zerothread?id=97865

[cmkelly]

Typically water pumps leak before they die. Back in the day there were horror stories of the bearings on a water pump going and the water pumps would literally fly out forward and scar the radiators but I've never seen that. I imagine you would have a loss of pressure and the engine would run very hot and over heat once all the coolant had leaked out.

Ahh, I miss my '72 Beetle...

[94_240sx]

zerothread?id=97865

Wow... never thought about that. Just wow. BTW, Courtesy Nissan can get the parts within 3-4 weeks from Japan based on my experience.

I think nissanconvert got plenty of ideas by now. Good luck!!

[GoinTopless240]

Hey nissanconvert, My vert has always had incredible heat. I've owned the car for about 9 years now and never had a problem. Usually after it warms up (about 3-5 mins) I actually have to turn it back down. Now it doesn't get down to 24 degrees to often here, but I would check the themostat as well. How long have you owned the car?Did the previous owner drve the car hard? An old trick to keep manifold temps down used to be to pull the theromstat out completely - mind you that was not a very good trick, but did keep temps down. In winter it usually would freeze up (extreme cold). Have you alse check the antifreeze to water ratio? (those little testers you see at any autopart stores do the trick). Running more water to coolant ratio is not good (could also freeze raditor in cold weather).One old trick would be the old cardboard over the radiator. Long haul truckers cover part of the radiator to stop the cooling of antifreeze. That would tell you if the coolant is circulating too fast and not allowing proper warm-up. (just don't do that in summer --- can you say overheat?).

Eikon brought up interesting point about the heater core... is the fluid level good - if not check the floor board or smell for antifreeze inside cabin. Could mean bad heater core - although your temp on gauge should still move to at least the halfway point... I would still lean towards the thermostat IMHO [QUOTE=nissanconvert] The coolant temp needle would only come one bar off the lowest when i turned the heat off for about 5 minutes but dropped back down immediately when i turned the heat back on.

That would indicate that the coolant is not tranfering heat from the engine or not staying in engine long enough to warm up the coolant.

Hope it works out...

[nissanconvert]

Awesome, that gives me a much better idea of what to look into! I'm glad in a way that there is hope for heat yet! I'll post up what I eventually find. By the time I get done replacing parts this car will be practically new!

[ishkabibble]

Thermostats can get stuck open, and if it's cold out and you are on the highway, the car might never reach operating temp.

Eikon, I'm surprised you live in Packer Central and haven't experienced this. (I used to live in the Twin Cities, and the winters were brutal! Very tough on cars.)

[guyaverage]

Thermostats can fail in the open or closed position. If the thermostat is opening too soon or too far, then you will have a lengthy warm up, if at all, and little or no heat. Replace yours with a Nissan factory t-stat (NOT an aftermarket) and you will be fine.

[guyaverage]

Ish, you and I were typing at the same time....

[ishkabibble]

Ish, you and I were typing at the same time....

Jinx?

[BaliLover]

A car with no thermostat will not warm up in the winter in my experience. I had a Honda that had a thermostat fail open and it never got past the first tick mark on the temp gauge and wouldn't blow hot, just luke warm.

My S13 came with a "previous owner removed" thermostat and it wouldn't warm up at all, I don't know that I would even call it luke warm, even on 45 minute drives.

I'm currently driving my fathers Z3 as a daily and its thermostat was also removed by a ghetto mechanic and it also never gets off the 1st tick on the gauge and on a 30 minute drive, by the time I pull into my driveway its just barely blowing warm.

So yeah, a missing or stuck open thermostat will prevent a vehicle from warming up or blowing warm in the winter.

[cmkelly]

And from what I understand driving without a thermostat or one stuck open is not good for the engine. Engines are designed to run at a certain operating temperature and colder engines cause more damage than normal temp ones.

Warm = better

[carcrazyguy]

And from what I understand driving without a thermostat or one stuck open is not good for the engine. Engines are designed to run at a certain operating temperature and colder engines cause more damage than normal temp ones.

Warm = better

Yes, this is true. It also kills fuel mileage since the engine stays on a "choke-like" fuel map.On another note, often people will run no thermostat in a car they are selling to cover up a cooling problem.

Anyway, pretty much every car I have bought recently needed a thermostat, including the 92 240 I just bought. I just put one in yesterday for that matter. My car had the exact same symptoms as was originally mentioned. I am in TN, and normal temps for Jan are 50's/30's (h/l), but have been a little more this "winter". Regardless, even at 65 degrees last week my car would not warm up all the way no matter how long I drove...and the gauge will not even leave C for about 20 minutes. Also, the heat would not actually ever get warm. So yesterday I bought a thermostat and gasket for $6.99 + 0.99 at Autozone. There was a cheaper version, but it was a different temp than the stock value.Anyway, now the heat gets pretty warm in maybe 5-7 minutes, and I am guessing it is warming all the way up now (The temp sensor wire came loose and I cannot figure where it goes).

The job is a little of a PITA because you will likely have to remove a bunch of intake stuff, but once you have access to the thermostat, the job is standard to any car.

[nissanconvert]

Heat and bloody knuckles!Ok, so I bought an oem thermostat(only 15$ at the dealership and nissanparts.org wanted 30?) I then went home and started disassembly and coolant flush.Whoops, can any of you guess what I might have been missing?At 1 am I realized I needed a gasket to put the new stat in, what a rookie mistake. So in anger I decided everything must go! by 5 am I had all the cracked belts off, the water pump out and broken in the process and the ******* pcv valve out. I will never change a 240 pcv valve again. I replaced hundreds of these during my short stint at valvoline and none were even close to this kind of impossible. Thank god for a large variety of tools is all I can say.

The following morning I borowed my brothers car and got me some parts. Summit racing was cheaper then autozone so I got a new water pump and belts and the gasket and pcv from autozone. It's all back in and I tried it out this morning, it WORKS! HEAT! The thermostat I pulled was marked 170F and looked fine but it was not a nissan part (MotoRad) was stamped on it? I think the spring was shot though as I could open it up just by puling on the ends. The water pump was just a casualty of me trying to get the fan off but only being 40$ was not bad and the belts and pcv were just easy to get to when the coolant was already out and the stuff out of the way. I was hoping the water pump was the source of the mystery clicking noise from the engine bay but alas it was not and will have to wait for another day.

[carcrazyguy]

I am a little confused. Do you mean you meant to change the water pump too, as well as the other things you mentioned? The reason I ask is because the fan was unnecessary to remove when I put in a new thermostat. My car is a 92 - maybe you have a SOHC?All I did was remove a couple intake hoses and the hose going into the thermostat housing. I only spilled maybe a cup of antifreeze too, so I simply topped the radiator back off...total job time maybe an hour, but if I did it again I could do it in 30.

By the way, today was another near 70 degrees "winter" day, as has been the case so far...and will be for a few more days according to the forcast. Anyway, I timed my warm up today and it took 4 minutes and change to get the needle to its 2/3 resting point. That almost seems too fast, especially for a car with a belt fan, but then again, I am used to my MR2 which takes all day due to its overengineered cooling system. What are your results?

[nissanconvert]

Yea, so I had this crazy notion that the water pump was making noises and I hadn't intended to mess with it originally but since the hoses were already out of the way i thought i'd take it out to inspect for play in the bearing. I may have accidentally bent some of the water blades and broke off a fan bolt in the process and it was pretty loose in the journal. It had nothing do with the heating though. (it's dohc by the way)

It was 36-40 today and it took about 3 miles of stop and go city driving (10 minutes?) to get it to the third notch where it actually stayed when i turned the heat on instead of sinking back into the oblivion below the lowest mark. My guess was that the thermostat was the culpret. Too bad the a/c is not as easy to fix(damn leaks cost me 100$ of r12 through the compressor housing. a project for summer i suppose, along with shocks and a new windshield-damn trees)

[carcrazyguy]

Yea, so I had this crazy notion that the water pump was making noises and I hadn't intended to mess with it originally but since the hoses were already out of the way i thought i'd take it out to inspect for play in the bearing. I may have accidentally bent some of the water blades and broke off a fan bolt in the process and it was pretty loose in the journal. It had nothing do with the heating though. (it's dohc by the way)

It was 36-40 today and it took about 3 miles of stop and go city driving (10 minutes?) to get it to the third notch where it actually stayed when i turned the heat on instead of sinking back into the oblivion below the lowest mark. My guess was that the thermostat was the culpret. Too bad the a/c is not as easy to fix(damn leaks cost me 100$ of r12 through the compressor housing. a project for summer i suppose, along with shocks and a new windshield-damn trees)

OK now I see. Yes, AC work gets really expensive. Worst of all our cars are 13-18 years old, so the AC systems will almost always need work.

If it gets colder, which it surely will at least a couple times before spring, I will compare my car's warmup time to yours. It will in the mid 60's for 2 more days according to the WC...but a cold snap is being predicted for Tuesday and Wednesday so I will see. I just feel like my car warms up too fast...

[94_240sx]

Yea, so I had this crazy notion that the water pump was making noises

Tha would be infamous noise from timing chain guide. I removed upper guide, but still hear noise from lower one. Still much, much better than before.

[nissanconvert]

I just looked that up and it sounds like that's likely it. Adding it to the to-do list, thanks!

[nissanconvert]

Still no heat! i drove 70mph for 1 and 1/2 hours and the needle never came up with the defrost blower on. To be fair the temp outside is 4 with windchill of -17. I guess the motor is just too damn efficient at staying cool. I guess I need a winter car.

[cmkelly]

Here you go, try this:

http://maps.yahoo.com/index.ph...ag=12

It's a costly fix but helps all other aspects of the car/life/etc. as well.

good luck!

cmk

[ftl900]

FYI- you can test the thermostat by dropping into a pan of water, and then boil it. Watch to see if it opens, and then check the temperature.

My vert cranks the heat out... Atlanta has been in the teens and 20's recently, and I always have heat within 2-3 miles, and by 10 miles or so, I have to turn it down.

Good luck with it!!

[nissanconvert]

That would be the greatest mod ever.License plate change oh to az