TD5 heater woes

Seems to be common issues with heaters on these things

Ive only owned the disco for 5 days got her pretty cheap as it has a few niggly faults and I am slowly working through them.
the main one that is bugging me is the damn heater doesnt get hot and doesnt get cold, I think I have sorted the A/C issue the a/c is full of gas pump kicks but the air is only slightly cooler than ambient, did a few basic checks gas pressure etc... and the electric fan behind the grill is seized solid so hopefully that will sort the A/C.

the biggest issue is the lack of heat. When I got the disco it was full of water, she doesnt overheat, water pump seems to flow good ( bleed nipple out when cold and fire up and there is a jet of water) there was a big difference in hose temps to and from matrix, the car has 200k on it so a flush is probs well overdue so put some descaler and cleaner in it did about 60 miles and the heater did improve went from cold to warm, dumped all the coolant and flush with fresh water and hose piped the matrix very little rubbish came out and the coolant was quite clean. fresh antifreeze in bleed off 99% happy got all the air out and the heater is liveable but not fantastic.
the thermister was full of crap so cleaned that.
The engine sits at a steady 85c (temp gauge in top hose)
Btw its a TD5
Any ideas? winters coming and I dont like the cold

Did you bleed the system properly?

Put new genuine thermostat cos it might be stuck open, that 85 is low a bit, also try to stop the viscous fan with a rolled newspaper with cold engine 1 minute after you started it, if you can't the viscous unit is locked and that affects heating.... make sure that the tank's cap is well tightened

bleed of as above, viscous fan works fine can hold it when engine is running, stat might be a good idea the engine does cool of when idlingfor any length of time.
the temp gauge reads strange the first quarter rises as you would expect time wise and then it will jump to halfway and sits there all day engine temps never go above 85c

The more I think about it the stat might be the answer had the disco ticking of for ages pulled away had pretty good heat got some speed up and the heater cooled off.
the only thing is the temp gauge didnt move still sat in the middle. are these temp gauges linear or is mine lying

Lee52 said:

the temp gauge reads strange the first quarter rises as you would expect time wise and then it will jump to halfway and sits there all day engine temps never go above 85c

Click to expand...

As @sierrafery would no doubt tell you, the temperature gauge just shows the presence of some heat in the engine. Once it detects that heat it'll sit in the middle of its range until the cows come home and will only indicate hot when things start getting too hot!
By no means does it show an accurate temperature. To get some definitive temperature reading you're going to have to use an additional more accurate device or use the live data as supplied by a compatible code reader.

so the temp gauge is just for civilians when I did my messurement before it was with a thermocouple in the top hose got 85 c but that was after it had been ticking over for an age not done it on the move. I will start it up in the morning from cold and have a feel of the rad see if if stays cold during the warm up period

The temp gauge on the D2 is a bad joke, it works in stages, untill 40* C stays down, at 40 goes to quarter, at 70*C jumps to the middle and stays there untill 120*C when it goes to red but then it might be too late

so far from a linear reading then lol not much use then

Yes, it's managed by the ECU not hooked directly to the sender

spot on thank you guys from what I have seen with my disco the stat would be the guilty part it was the temp reading that threw me of

Well picked up a stat on my way home from work so will pop that in tonight and see how we get on

well put a stat in tonight and the old one was shut I was hoping to see it stuck open, anyways new one in bleed off then bleed off and then a bit more, anyways sitting there ticking over heater was better then went for a drive the first 100yards the heater was nice and hot then went back to warm, stopped at the shops on the way back parked up (pointing slightly uphill) got back in and the rest of the drive home loverly hot heater so hopefully it burped itself when I switched it off.

The front axle halfshaft seal is leaking to the point the airbox had axle oil in it so I thought I better check the levels (plastic plug came out no bother) and it took over a litre to top up so must of been pretty low (got a new seal on order)

Well finally nailed the heater it was better after the stat change but still not fantastic, so after a bit poking about about there was a postive temp difference between the input and output on the matrix (even though I had already flushed it) so flushed it again and put some cleaner in the matrix and left it to sit for an hour while I did over jobs give it a good rinse out and now I have lots and lots of heat happy days.