heater issues

[13Goat]

New to the forum; hoping someone has traveled this road and knows a solution. Problem is this: 2013 Ram Laramie 2500, dual temp controls. Engine heat up to normal, heater controls slid all the way up to High, and very minimal amount of heat in the cabin. Where do I start looking for the problem? BTW, the A/C is also iffy on cooling the cabin. Bought this truck used, with 77k on the clock. Any suggestions appreciated.

 

[BOWERSFJ]

Just had my 2012 fixed .... He let it sit overnight with a chemical in the system .... Then he had something that vibrated the heater core to break up the deposits, and then he flushed it .... Unbelievable the heat comin out now !!!


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[13Goat]

That confirms my first inclination, which was to do a flush of the cooling system. Got a good diesel shop close to me, gonna see if they have any way of doing a pulse flush.

 

[jws123]

Just had my 2012 fixed .... He let it sit overnight with a chemical in the system .... Then he had something that vibrated the heater core to break up the deposits, and then he flushed it .... Unbelievable the heat comin out now !!!


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What chemical did he use i have never found anything that actually un clogs a heater core yet.

 

[indept]

That confirms my first inclination, which was to do a flush of the cooling system. Got a good diesel shop close to me, gonna see if they have any way of doing a pulse flush.

Give it a try but most likely it's a blend door issue since your AC is also poor. Common problem from what I've seen in this forum.

 

[Wallyb4]

I would agree with indept. IF you are having cooling and heating issues the blend door is the first place I would look. Can you hear the door moving when you go from hot to cold? I do not have the specs for the 2013 but I am sure you can look them up. I have also know that sometimes the dealership can do a reset of the cabin module to see if that solves it. But you cheapest route to try first is to see if the door is working correctly.

 

[13Goat]

Had not considered the blend door issue. I will have to give that a look-see. Guessing that to correct the blend door problem would entail tearing out the whole dash to get to the actuators?

 

[13Goat]

Hate to sound totally ignorant, but: are the door actuators vacuum operated or electric? Being that the truck is a diesel and I am hard of hearing, I'm hoping that I can just turn the key to "On" and check the door actuation that way. If it is vacuum operated, looks like I'll have to get one of the grands to listen for the door.

 

[GTyankee]

If you decide to do a heater core flush
First find out which heater hose is the hottest, that will be the supply side.
Then i would remove the hose ends that are closest to the front of the engine, working close to the firewall can be a b*tch.
Then take air or low water pressure applied to the return side hose, the coolant & crud will come out of the supply side hose, that method is called back flushing. Run the air until no fluid comes out, if your using a water hose & lo pressure, the fluid should turn clear.

The best method that i have seen on exactly how to do it, can be found on Youtube

One video that i found; he used CLR to try cleaning out crud


You should know that if you leave AIR in the heater core or hoses, you may cause another issue, i would try to put antifreeze into the heater before connecting the hoses back up

 

[GTyankee]

If you believe that it may be a Blend door issue, you only have to remove the radio bezel to get at the 2 electric actuators.
There is a 3rd & maybe a 4th actuator that can be found by removing the lower glove box.
All the actuators are identical.

The actuators can be taken apart, there are little gears inside of them.
If you see a broken tooth, you can rotate the gear 180 degrees in some cases & it will work again

Your radio bezel may come off slightly different from this video


By the way, Dodge Ram Climate control units have been made the same for several years, at least as far back as the Gen 3 years

You can see an image of the whole HVAC unit in the thread below

https://www.ramforum.com/threads/blend-door-removal-write-up.12723/