my cold van

I say you could be right!!! Assuming the vehicle has plenty of coolant and the heater core is stopped up, You could do a key cycle test to see if there are any fault codes stored in the computer system. (google how to do this) And you don't state what engine this vehicle has. If it is the Mitsubishi

Glenn Beasley Chrysler Tech

I say the Grand Caravan didn't come out until 1990.

Could be the thermostat Could be a plugged heater core Could be a seized blend door in the heater case Could be low on coolant Could be a plugged heater bypass valve Could be all of the above

It could also be a leaking head gasket. This was the problem with our

"fbksdodge" wrote in message news:7ee68ec45ffef@uwe...

If there's a problem with the thermostat, either the engine would overheat or would take an awfully long time to warm up. (Do you know the history of the vehicle? It's possible that it might not have any thermostat at all, if a previous owner went cheap -- and stupid -- on fixing an overheating problem...) With an old vehicle, look under the hood to see if it's got a valve controlling coolant flow to the heater. (Some vehicles have the heater on a "full flow" system with no valve in the line and water constantly flowing through the heater core, and some have a valve that opens the flow to the heater core only when you select "heat" from the dash controls.) If it's got that valve in (or at one end) of one of the heater hoses, it very well could be rusted shut. Simplest solution is to remove the valve and re-connect the heater hoses as a "full flow" system. (I've done it -- it works.) If you remove the valve, just remember to block off the vacuum line that activated it... If it's a "full flow" system, you could have accumulated corrosion blocking flow to or through the heater core. Since a corroded cooling system could very well screw up the thermostat as well, you could try a cooling system flush (a good one, with the nasty corrosive chemicals & neutralizer, not the cheap stuff you find in Wal-Mart) along with a new thermostat... (If the system is that far gone, you might want to install new heater hoses as well. It's possible for them to start disintegrating internally, tossing off bits & pieces that block flow, even if they aren't leaking internally yet.)

Good call!

| If there's a problem with the thermostat, either the engine would overheat | or would take an awfully long time to warm up. (Do you know the history of | the vehicle? It's possible that it might not have any thermostat at all, if | a previous owner went cheap -- and stupid -- on fixing an overheating | problem...) |

It might be worth looking to see if the heater core is even hooked up... it might be bypassed... As an associate found back in the 70s it solves the leaking heater core problem cheaply. ;~)

John

ssagenews:7ee68ec45ffef@uwe...

he said it did not work any more i found the easiest wat to fix the problem i have a caravan that had the same problem and what i did was take off the hoses to the heater core and use a garden hose with a brass sprayer and ran it through the core backwards and it flushed out all the shit in the heater core and it works perfect now