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Just want to vent...

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cdsmith

cdsmith

Jedi Hopeful
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Howdy...

Weather is getting nice here in Northern CA... so.... took the little car out for a spin on Sunday... When I got back home I decided to chech under the hood (bonnet) an noticed the "stupid" valve for the heater leaking (again) - seems that the leak is at the mounting plate - it has done this in the past (out comes the silicone RTV...).

Started looking around a little more and discovered a little coolant dripping out of the heater core - I guess I'll be driving w/o a heater for a while (bypass the core)... Getting warm outside anyway...

I guess I might spend some time and remove the heater parts and do a little "cleaning" and "make pretty"...

cd
 
"I guess I might as well..." hehehe don't do it you'll be stripping the whole car don't ask me how I know. Seriously, be glad you caught it before anything ran dry.
 
You might try:

STOP LEAK.

Available everywhere. Has always worked for me on small leaks.

Jim
 
Heater valve needs cleaning/rebuilding or replacing...& its so easy...better to do that than to fiddle around with 'bandaids'...it isn't a stop leak problem; it isn't an RTV problem....I mean, if you're gonna take it off anyway to put RTV under it, you might as well try this: [url="https://www.theautoist.com/cl...theautoist.com/cleaning_heater_valves.htm/url)

Oh, & stopped up heater valve can cause pressure on a weak heater core & cause it to leak.
 
I had a problem with the heater valve on my midget and I agree with Tony. Very easy to fix. The only issue I had was I had to carefully apply heat to my bolts as they were rusted and wouldnt break loose. Once I got them off the rebuild was a walk in the park. I got my kit from Moss and it came with a new chrome mounting plate to pretty things up.
 
I've had the heater valve off a couple of times...

The valve itself does not leak - the valve initially leaked where it screwed into the mounting plate - I seem to have fixed that. Now it seems to be leaking at the base of the plate itself... I guess I'll just make another gasket and give it a shot! Not too worried - gives me something to do...

The heater core is going to be removed and (maybe) at some point in the future I'll have it fixed (if I can't do it my self).

I'm not much of a "stop leak" person... At least for this car - everything is pretty easy to get to and fix...

Now.. on my "new to me" Xterra - that may have a leak in the heater core. It seems to get to the heater core it will require the removal of the dash and a bunch of other stuff to the tune of something like $600 or more, then "stop leak" may be a choice!

Technology (or the lack thereof) really makes me like this car!

Thanks for the input.
cd
 
Tony, I got a 404 on the link to your article. I think you have the url tag terminated incorrectly.
 
You're right - sorry...here's the link for cleaning an MGB valve (Midget is a little different & actually easier to rebuild/clean): https://www.theautoist.com/cleaning_heater_valves.htm

cd: I only know 1 way to say this & I apologize if it comes out wrong; however, you're wasting your time with your bandaid fix & all it is going to do is frustrate you when it starts leaking again.

Since you know how to remove the bad valve from the head, toss it & install a new one - it is just as easy as reinstalling the old one.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:]The valve itself does not leak[/QUOTE] It could very possibly be pushing water out if it is stopped up...& the only place the water can go is out the base once the gasket is soaked. There's a reason it repeatedly leaks in the same area & continuing to renew gaskets isn't doing anything except prolonging the necessary repair.
 
It didn't come out wrong... Well thought out information is always helpful.

It makes sense that if the valve was clogged up the coolant would have to go someplace else!

Thanks.
cd
 
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