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Heater control valve?

O

Oatmeal

NAXJA Forum User
Location
Cedar City, UT
Had a coolant leak at the heater control valve and figured it had to be the heater hose.....it was dark and the valve was less than two years old.

Bought a hose at the local O'Reilly's on the way home from grocery shopping (after finding a big green puddle in the parking lot).

Got home and started to remove the hose (after it cooled down) and had half of the valve come off with it....WTF!

Does anybody make a decent valve? I replaced that one less than two years ago when I rebuilt the motor because (that one was broken too) of the nice big hole that my old lady put in one of the pistons for me....arrrgghhh, we wont go there again.

That one came from NAPA so I figured it was a decent quality one (it was Chinese, though)
Got online to look for valves and they all seem to be the same plastic ones with different brand names (and prices) attached to them.

Anybody have a certain brand they recommend that they have had good luck with?

Anyway, I'm glad it happened close to home instead of somewhere out in the middle of nowhere.......I was able to bypass it until I can get a replacement.

Rant off.

Thanks for any info you guys can toss my way!

Oh, yeah.....hi guys, haven't been on here in a while.

Hans
 
Hey buddy, where you been hiding. :wave:

I have no comment on the valve, parts suck these days, good luck.
 
The renix ones were metal, although the hose sizes were different iirc.

What about using ball valves, and closing them in the summer
 
They are all made by dorman, no matter what parts store you get it at. The plastic they are made with gets brittle from heat and snaps if you look at it wrong, I went through 5 of them in 5 years before I finally just said to hell with it and bypassed the heater core unless it was cold outside. You can get a cable actuated all metal valve at NAPA, but you will have to do some re-routing of the hoses, it only has an in and an out instead of 4 ports like the stock one has.
 
I just eliminated the valve completely. I ran new heater hoses from the firewall straight to the water pump and t-stat housing. And plugged the vacuum line.
 
johnnyc said:
I just eliminated the valve completely. I ran new heater hoses from the firewall straight to the water pump and t-stat housing. And plugged the vacuum line.
Click to expand...
This is what I would do as well, the control vents under the dash will do the rest of the work for you...so long as they work right :)
 
JohnX said:
Hey buddy, where you been hiding. :wave:

I have no comment on the valve, parts suck these days, good luck.
Click to expand...
Hey John,

How're things? Life's been kinda chaotic this last year.....women issues.
Nothing I'd want to discuss publicly it'd require a couple of pitchers of beers at least......my bartender has heard the whole story!

souske said:
The renix ones were metal, although the hose sizes were different iirc.

What about using ball valves, and closing them in the summer
Click to expand...

Yeah, I looked into that.
The only issue I could see (maybe) is that my valve has four ports so it lets it bypass the core when closed but, still allows the water to flow between the pump and water outlet.

Now, if I just used a Renix era valve in one hose it would shut off flow completely and I'm wondering if that would cause a problem......anybody do this?

Thanks,

Hans
 
NAPA #660-1225 is an all metal 4 port vacuum operated heater valve, but it's pretty rare. there are only 3 napa warehouses in the US that each have one in stock, and the LA area warehouse is one of them. the only thing is it's got two 5/8" ports and two 3/4" ports.

hope that helps :D
 
GrimmJeeper said:
NAPA #660-1225 is an all metal 4 port vacuum operated heater valve, but it's pretty rare. there are only 3 napa warehouses in the US that each have one in stock, and the LA area warehouse is one of them. the only thing is it's got two 5/8" ports and two 3/4" ports.

hope that helps :D
Click to expand...
Thanks Mike,

With that part # I did a little searching and it comes up as a heater valve for an '83 Chevy Caprice (Four Seasons #74800 http://www.rockauto.com/dbphp/x,catalog,52,partnum,74800,d,Four_Seasons_74800.html )

Autozone (yikes!....the other guys) can get it in a couple of days for $22....I'll order it and post up about how it works out when I get it.

Hans
 
For those who have eliminated the heater control valve and have the coolant going through the heater core all the time; how did this effect things? does the blower blow warmer air than the outside air when the heater is off? Does that area of the dash get hot? Does it effect the A/C temp? Thanks for any info you can offer.
 
Update,
The all metal valve I picked up at Autozone for (IIRC) an '83 Caprice, fits and works awsome!
Should last a good while ;)

Hans
 
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