Heater blowing cold air

[reeder123]

I just started driving my tercel (Rodney) a few days ago and he's been doing great, except for some reason the heater suddenly stopped blowing hot air, It was working fine until I slid the lever over to the cool side (which obviously turned the air cool from the vent) but when I slid it back over to warm it never turned warm again...woops! As I've mentioned before I'm no good with machines and am the furthest thing from a mechanic. I did check to make sure the coolant wasn't leaking and it looked fine. I did search the forum to see if I could find anything to help, but am pretty lowsy with forums. Any ideas or tips to get me headed in the right direction would be greatly appreciated.

[takza]

Probably the heater controls....quick fix is to locate the heater control valve back pass side of engine and move it into the open position so it will allow coolant into the heater. For winter you can leave it this way.

Then....

https://tercel4wd.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=5388

[Petros]

it could be the control cable on the hot water valve (located directly back from the carb and fuel pump on the fire wall in the engine compartment), or it could be the control cable that goes to the flaps in the head control system. occasionally the loop comes off the controller lever. have a friend move the lever back and fourth and than lay under the dash with a strong flash light and try and follow it to where it ends. You will likely find it disconnected.

Slight chance a cable broke, but that is pretty rare.

[reeder123]

Great suggestions! after a lot of unnecessary tinkering (and by "unnecessary" I mean taking apart the whole dash!) I found the problem, the cable with the small hole on the end had become disconnected from the heater valve control. haha, a 2 second fix after spending about 2 hours taking apart the dash and putting it back together. Don't worry I'll start figuring this stuff out eventually... but all is well and Rodney is nice and toasty. (and not a moment too soon, the mercury dipped down to 0 last night!) Thanks again for the help, you guys are great!

[dlb]

simple fixes are the best!

[Petros]

The basic rule is check out simple/less work fixes first, and than work up to the more costly/more work fixes as you rule out the simple ones.

It may seem obvious but it is important to diagnose the cause before you attempt any "fix".

Make sure you adjust or bend the end of the wire loop so it will not come off by itself again.

[toughtercel]

All those years and amount of tercel I've work on , most heater control panel are always hard (stiff) to move back and forth, The Hot/cold control knob move into hot postion that end up not full hot postion , control cable on the hot water valve still have little more to go to become full postion , Some Tercel I 've been busy adjusting over and over , never get it right because that knob which hook up two separate cable same time, finally decide take cable off at the hot water valve and leave at hot postion for good and tie it with zip tie.When move into cold then it become cold but Tercel with AC I don't know because I never own one .
Second of all ,(while driving you notice cold air coming in when open the glove department ) that because the Fan housing are not fully seal to upper ventation ,remove the fan housing , you will notice the insulation is gone ( flake away) make a new one with thin foam to add on ,same time look under the dash ,there rubber insulation are inproper install from factory,just flat it out .