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Check your coolant level.

 

Excelent suggestion. I had a dodge 600 that I took from LA to portland. 100 miles into the trip the heat stopped working. I didn't really have time to fix it so I just drove on. When I got to portland I checked out the car and found a blown head gasket. I had 2 gal of coolant in the oil. And it was a turbo car. The gasket was a major PITA so I put block sealer in it and drove it another 10k miles before the turbo bearings went bad. The car wasn't worth $100 so I didn't feel like fixing it properly. Just a beater that got tossed when it died.

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A stuck-closed thermostat will allow the heater core to work but the dash temp gauge will sit at cold. Why? Because the dash gauge's temp sensor is ABOVE the thermostat: if the t-stat is stuck closed, coolant never gets to the sensor! The heater core circuit though is below the t-stat so you'll have normal heat. Too-little water/coolant does the same thing.

 

Driving this way is a sure way to kill the engine in very very short order: it's overheating! "Only" a blown head gasket if you're lucky; a cracked cyl head and/or cracked block is more likely.

 

Does your fuel gauge work? That gauge has an internal voltage regulator function; if the regulator fails (common) then both the fuel gauge and temp gauge are stuck at their lowest readings.

 

mike c.

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