Toyota Repair: heating, outlet hoses, jet mechanic

Question
OK Ted, here is a puzzler. I have a 96 Tacoma with 196K miles, 5 speed tranny and a 3.4 liter eng. Recentley cold air started coming from the heater instad of the warm air I am used to. I am a jet mechanic so I started troubleshooting. I drained and backflushed the cooling system, no help. I replaced the thermostat and water pump, still no help. I removed the inlet and outlet hoses from the heater core and forced water thru there, it was clear. The hot water valve to the core is funtional. So basically everything should work. Here is the strange part, the lower radiator hose never gets hot. I even removed the the thermostat and checked it in hot water, it does open at 180 degrees as it should. The hoses to the core are also hot but I never get any heat, I never ask for help but I am out of ideas. Thanks,
James M
North Carolina

Answer
The lower radiator hose should always be a lot cooler than the upper hose since the heated coolant from the engine is introduced into the radiator from the top hose so it can circulate through the radiator core and cool off and go back through the engine and the whole process starts all over.
Diagnosing a problem a lot of times rquires the process of elimination so that there are only a few possibilities that can be the cause, you should know this.
We can exclude the following based on your information:
the thermostat
the heater core
the water pump
the heater valve
That leaves us with another possibility, there is a problem with the heater control system on the dash.
It is controlled with sleeved cables and I have seen many cases where a control cable to one of the blend doors has become disconnected and this is probably the case here.
Look on the right side of the heater ducting just under the glove comparment to the left for the control cable and make sure it is attached and moves the control lever when moving the dash control knob from cold to hot, you may have to remove the glove box to check this, I have seen this happen many times so my best guess is that this is the case, let me know if my answer is correct.
You can respond directly,my email address is tedrttr@yahoo.com/