I'm trying to clean up a '73 Electra with the 455-4 (WITH A/C) and need help with the routing of the heater hoses. The system was bypassed years ago in Texas and now it's in Mass and the winter is coming. As it stands now: Hose 1 comes from the heater core and runs into a metal cap type fitting that has another piece attatched to it that contains a vacuum port. I'm thinking this is the control valve, but if so how does the coolant exit the valve? Hose 2 comes out of the heater core and is just sitting open on the top of the passenger side inner fender. I tried searching but I couldn't find a good diagram, and my Chilton manual only shows routing on '71 non-a/c cars.
The heater control valve should have an outlet side that goes to a port on the intake. The other hose coming from the core goes to the top of the timing cover.
Going from this pic It looks like the inner hose runs to the water pump and the outer hose runs through the valve and into the intake somewhere. Could someone please verify this before I start moving around hoses and get things mixed up. Also what happens if the valve is bypassed and the hose is run straight from heater core to engine?
The larger (3/4") hose runs to the water pump/timing cover area. The smaller (5/8") hose runs to a heater control valve, then makes a 90* turn to the intake manifold. If you run a hose directly to the manifold leaving out the valve, then you will have coolant running through the heater core 100% of the time. The only time it is shut off is when the air conditioning is switched to recirc. If you decide to not run the valve, you must plug the vacuum hose that runs to it. Why not run it?
Thanks for that info. It'll come in handy when I hook everything back up. And since it's the start of winter in New England I'm going to have the heat on 100% of the time anyway. Especially since the weatherstripping is shot. I figure I'll bypass the valve and then in the spring I'll try to track one down to put in if needed. The original one has been open to the elements for so long I doubt it's functional. There's no need to add another source of leaks when I'm trying to fix the leaks I already have.
I looked today and the setup on it now has a hose running in a loop from the timing cover to the thermostat housing. I'm guessing those are the ports that I need to be routing the heater hoses to. Overall it doesn't look as complicated as I though it was. I thought I needed to route a hose to the rear of the intake but I guess I lucked out.
Great pics. That should be a sticky somewhere. I may have made it sound more confused than it was meant to be. I'm not talking about the bypass hose. I know what that is from working on Olds motors. What the last owner did was disconnect both heater hoses from the front of the motor and then zip-tie them togather and wrap them around the a/c hose to keep them off the engine. Then he ran a single hose at the front of the motor to tie together the 2 empty ports that the heater hoses connected to. It's looped over the black shield at the a/c compressor and is funtioning as a really big bypass hose. Not sure what diameter the hose is but he managed to get it on both ports and clamped down tight. Everything on this car is "not quite right" so I'm trying to undo his work as I fix things. It's making it alot harder than it needs to be.
I think I can visualize it, but do you have any pics of that quadruple bypass? Sounds like the texas guy had quite the frankensteim going on. Smartin - nice clean engine you have there!
Thanks, Scott. Although it looks like I've developed some surface rust in the last couple years...time to touch up over the Winter.
I painted my intake manifold about 8 years ago. I didn't do a great job at prepping it and the rust came through the next year. I may pull it this Fall and strip it down and re-do it. If you'd like, I have a survey running on one of my posts for Electra owners. Not sure if you have seen it, but you're welcome to add an entry for your Electra. 'Impromptu Survey - Electra Owners '
I bet the reason he looped it like that was because the heater core was leaking. If you want to get those hoses back to where they were originally, you're going to have to replace the core.
Planning on swapping the core and running new hoses. I'm going to skip the valve for now and then maybe hook it up in the summer if the car gets too toasty inside. Every car I've owned had a constant flow heater core so I'm more used to that then the valve setup anyway.
