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TR2/3/3A tr3 heater

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sp53

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Hi all I went out to work on my tr3 project in the barn and the heater is leaking. The motor is new and the heater is an old one that I thought was good. Anyway from my way off think the heater will always have some flow even with the valve turned off. One way to stop the leak would be loop the hoses at the engine. I am open to other ideas. Does anyone have a clever idea how to drain some of the water out of the heater before I start to remove it?
Steve
 
Remove the hoses at the firewall inside the engine compartment and apply compressed air at low pressure CAREFULLY thru one end to drain out the other. Be sure to have some plastic and towels inside over the tranny tunnel in case the leak goes inside instead of outside!
After the heater is out you can plug both holes in the engine if you wish and run the car as is untill you get the heater repaired.
The inlet and the outlet are at the top of the heater so if you wanted to remove it with water still in you might not spill any....just protect your interior as above.
Gordon
 
When I did this I just cut the hose on the p/s side (inside) and had a bucket handy. Of course if oyu want to reuse the hoses this won't do though unless they are very pristine original ribbed hose you will probably replace.

While the heater was out I ran a length of (new) hose under the dash from the firewall inlet to the firewall outlet. When reinstalling I just used that length of hose for the 2 lengths required with the heater.
 
Gordon_Dedrick said:
Remove the hoses at the firewall inside the engine compartment and apply compressed air at low pressure CAREFULLY thru one end to drain out the other.
Click to expand...
If you don't have compressed air handy, just lung power will do. Easier if you have a length of new heater hose handy, to slide over the fitting and blow into. If you've got two of them, you can put the other one on the other side and let the end hang down into a bucket to catch most of the coolant from the core.

You won't get it dry this way, but close enough that you can remove it without spilling, and most likely it will stop leaking even if you don't remove it.

As noted, the heater is still under pressure even with the valve closed. Besides, those valves rarely close completely anyway, so it will probably leak some pressure into the core even if you block off the other side. Only way to be sure is to remove (and block) both hoses.

BTW, the threads at the head & water pump housing are standard pipe threads, so an ordinary pipe plug will work to close them off. Sorry, don't recall offhand if it's 3/8 NPT or 1/2 NPT.
 
Thanks all for your help. I will most likely use ideas from each of you. The heater that is in there is very fresh and the hook ups on the inside fire wall should come off easily. They are new ones; I think without the little collar. The weather is warming up some, and I might go out today. What I am going try is taking the hoses lose in the cab and putting one end in a bucket and try the air pressure idea. Hopefully, the firewall hook ups are higher than the block and radiator top. Clearly, I could drain some coolant. If I do unhook the hose from under the hood, I will loop the hoses together from the tap to the heater tube. IMO this will help the coolant flow through the head. I have another heater I can put in. It is a Moss matrix heater that I added some filler. I basically cut some plywood in a circle the size of the core to shim up the gap so the matrix heater does not sit so high under the dash. I used the old bigger clips and painted the plywood black so it is hard to see. Perhaps I can post a picture if I can come up with camera.
Steve
 
sp53 said:
IMO this will help the coolant flow through the head.
Click to expand...
Think about it a moment : The water pump "sucks" water from the bottom of the radiator, and forces it into the front of the block. It then runs from the block to the head (through those restrictive holes in the head gasket), forward through the head and out through the thermostat housing.

The heater line comes off the back of the head, loops through the heater, then returns to the suction side of the water pump housing.

So IMO with the line looped, flow might be marginally improved through the block, but it will be reduced through the head.
 
I hear you Randall, but what about the upper radiator hose and bypass hose and thermostat housing hole that the sleeve kinda seals. Doesn’t the coolant fall down that path by gravity and would it not be better to have the coolant circulate by having the heater hose looped. Or maybe I am looking at this backwards.
Steve
 
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