not much heat

[sgull]

98 Ranger 4 cylinder putting out not much heat from heater. Some heat but not really all that warm even turned up all the way. Checked coolant level and is fine in radiator and reservoir. Let it run quite a while with heat on and felt upper and lower radiator hoses, neither of which got very warm at all after 10 min or so of running. Felt heater hoses http://i207.photobucket.com/albums/b...1/IMG_1715.jpg going into and out of firewall, and they felt fairly warm but not hot. Wondering if maybe thermostat is not working right, and need a new one? Or something else, like a heater control valve or something. In the picture there, what's that smaller hose going into the hose shown on the right? I assume its a vacuum hose because it goes to the engine. Any suggestions for initial troubleshooting and/or a likely fix for the issue appreciated here please.

 

[Explorin94]

Change the thermostat and there should be an orfice in on of the heater hoses to slow down the flow through the heater core.

 

[trail B2]

The 3 things I would look at is seeing that the engine is getting to temperature.Sometimes when it's real cold you can get more heat by covering part of the radiator.I've had this happen more with small motors. Flush out the heater core if you get crap in the heater core it doesn't move hot water through it properly.Make sure the doors in the heater are working properly and not letting your warm air mix with cold air.

 

[BRUTUS_T_HOG]

replace the thermostat.