I‘m having a problem with my a/c system. the interior lights on the controls no longer come on, and many things don‘t work anymore. the fan comes on blows air, but it‘s no longer heated. and the ducts don‘t move either, for when you want the air from the outside vs inside air circulation. everything was fine yesterday until the thermostat housing was attempted to be taken off.the last bolt wouldn‘t come off. and the housing has shifted a bit from its original place, and wont be budged back. could this have anything to do with it. i checked all fuses and they work fine. any solutions?
If you want heat, it's carried by the engine coolant. If the engine thermostat housing isn't closed tight, the coolant will all leak out and not carry heat anywhere- the heater, the radiator- not anywhere, and it will stay where you don't want too much of it- in the engine. The engine will overheat very quickly without coolant in it and be damaged badly. The interior heating ducts are controlled, often, by engine vacuum carried by little hoses and some may have gotten knocked loose. Some cars do this wth cables and levers instead of vacuum. You need to look in a good auto repair manual like Chiltons and see where everything related to heating and cooling belongs and make sure it's still there. But before you try to start the engine, fix the thermostat housing. Get a friend who knows about these things to help you and don't let it get dark before you finish working. Since the heater lights don't come on anymore, find the wire that got knocked off and plug it back. How do bolts on an engine near a thermostat get stuck? Maybe it's rusted in place, or stuck with block sealer that was used to stop a leak. Leak stop with sodium silicate will do that, and that's about the best kind of sealer, but the problems it can cause are what you have. I hope you never have to take the head off- some of the head bolts might be stuck too and they are extremely hard- I wouldn't want to have to try and drill out one, and you'd need a diamond drill, or at least carbide. If you break the thermostat bolt, you'll have to drill it out and tap new threads in the hole so a new bolt will go in and hold. That simple job got very complicated, didn't it.
