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Expert
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Location: Valley Forge, Pa. | I had an issue a couple years ago that might be usefull to someone if this has happened to you. I had good heat around town but one day I was doing some high speed driving and lost ALL heat. Stopped and checked and everything seemed to be working good again. Water temp was good. IF this ever happens to you, check the lower radiator hose. Mine was old and soft and apparently collapsed at higher speeds. I replaced the hose and added an internal coiled support wire that I removed from an old hose.
Anyway, current problem - no heat. Fan works. Heater valve works but is leaking. I have had a spare rebuilt heater valve and heater core sitting around so I am going to replace them while I am at it. I am guessing there is a vacuum leak somewheres? Where do I start? Its not actually that there is no heat, it's just that it isn't getting distributed.
My other question is, I forgot I even have them but I found a couple NOS dash vacuum switches #1995-501 that I believe are for early 70s cars with AC? The correct non-AC ones are so expensive and I have 2 of these on hand. The only external differences APPEAR to be 3 electrical terminals at one end. Everything else looks the same. I believe I had asked a similar question years ago and I think someone had a way to use the AC switch?
Thanks again,
Karl. |
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Expert
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Location: Muskego, WI | A spring in the lower hose never addressed the real problem, only eliminated the symptoms. The lower hose collapsed because there is a restriction in your system supplying the upper radiator tank (suction of water out of the bottom tank is greater than the flow into the upper tank). You could have clogs in your radiator, your thermostat isn't fully opening or you have some other blockage. I would recommend a new T stat and reverse flush your system. |
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Board Moderator & Exner Expert 10K+
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Location: Southern Sweden - Sturkö island | I second that! |
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Expert 5K+
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Location: northern germany | never had a spring in any radiator hose. never a problem. |
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Expert
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Location: Valley Forge, Pa. | Actually, I posted my problem when it happened years ago and the suggestion for the wire in the hose came from this forum and someone else agreed. It worked for me. Before I tried the wire, I had the radiator recored that following spring becasue of leaks but when I took my long drive up nooth the followning winter, I lost heat again. I replaced the thermo and the upper hose when I installed the recored radiator. The only reason I didn't replace the lower hose at that very time was because I had a spare new upper and thermo. The lower hose wasn't too old and my "on hand" spare was worse.
Wouldn't something blocked or restricted like that give me other symtoms such as over heating or something? My car has always run very cool on the hottest days except for when I lost anti-freeze through holes in the core or the upper tank seams leaks. |
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Expert
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Location: Arizona | Some hoses come from the factory with a spring. I remember reading about the possible need for the spring way back in the 60's before I even got my license. |
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Expert 5K+
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Location: northern germany | jimntempe - 2016-01-15 4:49 PM
Some hoses come from the factory with a spring. I remember reading about the possible need for the spring way back in the 60's before I even got my license.
there was a rusty, falling apart, spring in the lower radiator hose in my 60 fury big block when i bought it 1988. could have been oe. |
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PolyBun alias
Posts: 13
| Dumb question... are the hoses for the heater core getting hot? I mean, make sure there is actually water flowing through them dudes.
Also.. one person asked if the thermostat was fully opening... uhdowhatnow? the thermostat shouldn't go fully open until the engine hits about 190-195 degrees. Unlikely at highway speeds. In any case if the thermostat was full open you would get LESS heat because that's the way the system works. If the thermostat is wide open there will be very, very little flow through the heater core. This is because the heater hose layout is a bypass off of the thermostat housing directly to the water pump. This means the water pump is only going to be able to move water through the heater hoses if there is some restriction at the thermostat. As long as there is SOME sort of thermostat in there there will always be enough restriction, and yet another reason to never run the vehicle with no thermostat at all. (dunno why you would.. .some people are crazy, others are just flat out stupid)
You same the temp is good at highway speeds. WHICH should have you wondering, am I getting good water flow through the heads? Check this mess out.
https://goo.gl/photos/ofpm1sDSkWQUhYe98
Bought this car from an old school hot rodder, didnt' beleive in coolant because "it never gets cold enough here to freeze so I don't need it." I emailed him that photo and told him what a dumb ass he was. Anyway good thing the exaughst manifolds split wide open, that forced a head removal due to broken studs, which then allowed me to find this freakin' mess and was able to clean things up before any permanent damage was done.
There are a lot of coolant passages on mopar heads, and when those get plugged up the entire flow pattern is distrubed. The reason your heat is cold could be that rather than capturing water that has flown all over the head is that because of a clogged passage your getting a stream of cold water that shot through passages it shouldn't right off the radiator outlet. The really crappy thing about this is because it caused by water bypassing the head, not flowing properly, and going straight to the thermostat, where your temperature sending unit is located. Would it boil over, over heat? Maybe, maybe not. It's boiling in there for sure at the head, but if that boiled water meats with enough cold water it'll recondense as well. I would expect a hot spot or two on the heads.
This all assuming it just isn't a plugged up heater core, or a thermostat that is failing to close all the way and letting the coolant temp drop to below 160F. Once the water temp is below 160F don't expect much heat to come out of the heater core. Delta-T is not a linear curve. Also, I wouldn't assume the radiator isn't clogged just because it's new. Nothing goes wrong faster than a brand new part! Maybe something got left in it during assembly, maybe a mistake got made, who knows.. piece of plastic wrap, foam, a plastic plug...
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Expert
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Location: Valley Forge, Pa. | I rebuilt the motor a couple years before the problem started. I took it down to the last nut & bolt and it was professionally cooked, flushed, magna-fluxed, ect. I always run antifreeze and distilled water. Even thought the radiator had issues that I fixed, it was never clogged with crud and had good flow. I would think that if my heads were clogged, wouldn't it have issues more than no heat inside car at high speeds? Yes, removing the thermo in the cold of winter would never allow my motor let alone the heater to warm up. The temp always stays around half way reguardless of the seasons unless it gets real hot in the summer then it will go up some but never scary hot.
I'm not totally sure what the question is here. I posted the problem here several years ago and some said that a weak lower radiator hose can collaps at high speeds and I should try installing a wire/spring to support it. I did it and it works fine now. I THINK I have done everything else I could and all is apparently in great working order with probably over 30,000 on it sence. I'm not posting this to see if I can get people to tell me to "read the shop manual" or that I am stupid, I am just telling you what I was told, I did it, and that it worked for me.
As I recall, any aftermarket lower radiator hose when I first started driving in the late 60s had a wire/spring inside them. I don't know if they were ever used from the factory but I am not sure they weren't. Obviously, there must be something to it or why would anyone even think of putting a wire inside the hose to support it from collapsing? Maybe I'm wrong and there is a hidden problem but I think I have done everything correctly and I'll just drive it until the problem[if there is one] shows itself. Hopefully that's another 10 years/100,000 miles down the road.
Karl. |
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I've recently lost heat in my car type question
