TR2/3/3A Heater removal and engine cooling

I am looking for members' input to determine if I am justifiably worried or if this is no big deal.
I removed my cab heater a while back and plugged the respective ports on the water pump and the engine block. I am wondering if by removing this loop I have also disturbed a cooling flow pattern where part of the coolant is bypassed and re-introduced at the back of the block. This could potentially have reduced hot spots in the engine.
Any thoughts?

No worries, that is no different than having the water valve closed. In fact, that is the standard configuration, as the heater was actually optional! I've run for several decades now with no heater and no apparent problems.
In fact, the heater arguably robs coolant flow from the cylinder head, which is where the cooling is most critical. Normal flow goes through the block first and then through the head; but the heater loop bypasses the head. The water pump fitting is on the low side of the pump.

Because my TR4 was initially delivered to 'the tropics' (Hawaii) it had no heater. The plugs on the head and water pump were how the factory did the delete.

This was a pretty common practice among Brit cars as I have seen several original (non-TR) Tucson cars in which a heater was never installed.

Interesting thought that this might even improve cooling in some ways.

Here is how Triumph did the plug on the head... a 45° street ell, then a pipe plug:

Interesting. On the TR3A I had (TS42xxx) with no heater from the factory, the plug was just in the head with no elbow.

A little off topic, but our 3A was also a Hawaii car, delivered in 58, one year before Hawaii became a state. But it came with a heater!

Geo Hahn said:

Because my TR4 was initially delivered to 'the tropics' (Hawaii) it had no heater. The plugs on the head and water pump were how the factory did the delete.

This was a pretty common practice among Brit cars as I have seen several original (non-TR) Tucson cars in which a heater was never installed.

Interesting thought that this might even improve cooling in some ways.

Here is how Triumph did the plug on the head... a 45° street ell, then a pipe plug:

Click to expand...

Thanks everyone. My TR came to me with the heater but no valve, so I keep forgetting that the factory would have validated performance with both valve open and closed.

TR3driver said:

Interesting. On the TR3A I had (TS42xxx) with no heater from the factory, the plug was just in the head with no elbow.

Click to expand...

Perhaps TR4s with a heater had that elbow?

I suspect the heater delete sometimes occurred after the car was at the dealer so there may be some inconsistencies from that. My 'Hawaii' car was dispatched to CalSales in L.A., I'm guessing they arranged transport to the islands rather than Triumph shipping directly to Oahu. In any case, the original sale and original owner were in HI.

Geo Hahn said:

Perhaps TR4s with a heater had that elbow?

Click to expand...

I believe so. The TR4 used a cable-operated valve that was shorter than the TR3 hand-operated valve, and would not fit onto the engine without that elbow. Since the elbow can't be installed or removed without removing the rocker cover, I'm guessing that the elbow was installed during engine manufacture, without knowing whether the resulting car would have a heater or not. On cars without a heater, they just stuck a plug in without going through the hassle of removing the cover to remove the elbow.

On the 3/3A, the bulkhead fittings for the heater hoses were also not installed, and had blanking plates instead. My 3A had the blanking plates. Doesn't really prove anything, but leads me to believe that heaters were not installed and then removed; but rather not installed originally if someone ordered a car without the heater option. Of course, that could have changed for later cars.

Let me throw in a case for the flow through the head. If you connect a pipe from the would be heater outlet and the pipe that comes out of the back of the water pump housing, when installed, just like the by pass when you don't have the heater valve open for heat.
I'm just trying to get in my mind, if no heater is there, surely better flow would be available????

Wayne

The water pump outlet goes into the block. From there, normally the water flow goes into the head and out through the thermostat housing. But with a pipe effectively connected between the back of the block and the water pump inlet, the water that flows through that pipe doesn't flow through the length of the head. So overall flow through the pump might be higher (due to less resistance), but flow through the head is going to be less.

Not by much, certainly not enough to matter. I'm just saying that eliminating that bypass of the head won't hurt anything.

OK, thanks. Now I don't have to worry about that. Trying to eliminate things, one at a time. Buying the XK8 sure added a bunch.

Wayne

Geo Hahn said:

Perhaps TR4s with a heater had that elbow?

Click to expand...

That's definitely the elbow used for TR4s - but even with the heater delete this may be the way they did it at the factory. With the cable operated valve you needed the elbow - and adding it later is a problem because it interferes with the nearest cylinder head stud if you try to add or remove it. So it would be better to just plug it off as you have it.