mattdel

maybe some of you remember a little while back i posted about my fathers durango having no heat, some tips were posted, etc..

heres the story now.

cardboard in front of radiator has had no affect. engine temperature STILL will not go anywhere near what it is supposed to. i'm talkin serious under-temp, like 120* tops.
it will not rise above that no matter how hard you beat on it. thermo has been replaced.

my only conclusion is the fan clutch, but since money's a bit tight right now and that part is $90, i'm hoping for a little diag help.

Portmaster

First Check the coolant level.
The themostat if it's any good should not open until it reaches it's set to open temp. If it's new you either have a bad one or your gauge isnt working correctly. If the fan clutch was bad and stuck in full position the Thermostat would close each time the coolant got down low enough to allow it to close up. Thats why it called a thermostat. I'd put a manual gauge on it to verify the actual temp before putting cardboard in front of the radiator. You may eng up burning the motor up because of putting trust in the gauge.

PRO50SC

Matt, does the truck have heat? Have you checked the flow in the radiator? Also, if you've put cardboard in front of the radiator and still had no luck w/ the temp rising, I would say the clutch is no the problem. It's still blocking the air to the radiator so the temp should still rise.

Another thing you can try to check the clutch. You have to be very careful in doing this. I usually wear a pair of heavy gloves and use a bundle of shop rags to do it. Start the motor from cold and at idle, now try and stop the fan from turning, this is when it should be spinning it's slowest since the temp is cold. If you can not stop the fan w/ little effort, the clutch is bad.

projectresto83

I wonder how many times someone cut their hands trying that for the first time lol.

Pull the fan off completely and see what the temp is like. Do the hoses get warm at all?

Portmaster

Have some clean rags and 911 on speed dial, hahaha!! I do it but never advise it.

FORD TOUGH

Does it put out heat? Is it full of coolant? Do you have a mechanical gauge you could use to see what temp the engine is? Does the top radiator hose get hot? I don't think a fan clutch would cause it to run cold because some cars do not have fan clutch they run constant.

mjr46

I've worked on a few durangos as of recent and I believe there was a service/tsb on the fan clutch not releasing, had one a few weeks back that did such but the guy didn't want to fix it, said the dealer had recently installed a new one

mattdel

the truck has very luke warm heat, coolant flow is excellent, nothing gets warm. you could sit naked on the intake manifold after an hour of running it. coolant is cool to the touch after running for a while.

projectresto83

And it still drives perfectly fine? That just seems wierd. What do the plugs look like?

FORD TOUGH

Is it full of coolant? Did you purge the cooling system when you did the thermostat? What motor is in it?