Apparently the heater control valve in my 72 Cutty 350 has taken a dump, and it has sprung a small leak. I noticed it being a little damp back by the distributor vacuum advance. Has anyone had ANY type of success replacing these things, and what is the difficulty level? I looked through some of the previous threads, and it sounds pretty painful. Has anyone come up with an easier way to replace this thing? Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Kevin

 

It was really easy on my '68. Let a few gallons out of the radiator petcock, take the heater hose off the valve (put a small towel under the connection to catch the drips of antifreeze if you have a clean engine), put a wrench on the valve and unscrew the valve, put the new valve in and tighten, hook the heater hose back up and put the antifreeze back in the radiator. If you haven't changed your coolant in a while this is a good excuse/chance to do so as well.

 

Yeah - it's really about as simple as you can get.
The only problem is that sometimes that sucker is REALLY stuck in there, in which case a BF Pipe Wrench is in order.

- Eric

 

OK, thank you guys....I will try this tomorrow. I just saw a few earlier threads where they said this was a pain in the butt, having to hacksaw the valve, and use a socket to get it out. Oh and, if it needs to be cut off? Can you say "air cutter" .....and stuck...Impact wrench? Thanks again.

 

Update to this thread for future reference....steps....

As Starfire said:

"It was really easy on my '68. Let a few gallons out of the radiator petcock, take the heater hose off the valve (put a small towel under the connection to catch the drips of antifreeze if you have a clean engine), put a wrench on the valve and unscrew the valve, put the new valve in and tighten, hook the heater hose back up and put the antifreeze back in the radiator. If you haven't changed your coolant in a while this is a good excuse/chance to do so as well."

1. drain few gallons off of radiator
2. unhook hose from the heater valve
3. put a towel under it if you have clean engine
4. take a hammer to the old one, and break off the top
5. take an impact wrench, (if you have one, if not, borrow one), and break the old one loose with a deep well socket 1 1/16"
6. remove the old one by hand once broken loose


This is the kicker: the new heater valves that are out are elongated so that you can't just screw it back in. I had to remove the tranny bolt that was holding the dipstick tube for the tranny. (Because the new valves are elongated, you cannot screw it in, it hits the tranny tube.)

6a. Cuss a little bit here, you will feel better
6b. If you have sunglasses on your head, place them in a safe place.
7. Once you have the tranny tube moved, you can then proceed.
8. Put tranny bolt/dipstick tube back in.
8a. Cuss a little bit more, as this can be a pain in the rear.
9. Hook up hoses.
10. Refill radiator
11. Have about 10 beers RIGHT NOW, because you are so PO'd that you had to remove the tranny bolt and move the dipstick tube to replace the %$@! heater valve.

Anyway, thanks to Starfire and MDchanic for their input.

***I had to make a couple of amendments to this, so follow these steps verbatum. ***

 

Sounds great! Glad you got it done!

Of course, your question got me thinking about MY heater valve, which has been bouncing around in my trunk for a few months...

In my case, the engine in my '73 Delta is a 260 from an '80 Gutless (110 whopping horsepower!), which didn't come with a heater valve. Instead, it's got a plain stub, like a pipe nipple, with no hex on it, so for me to get it off, I'm gonna have to take a bunch of parts off the engine so I can get a pipe wrench on the base of this thing and twist it out. I'll need at least ten beers when I'm through with this one.

- Eric

 

HAHAHA!!!! Well, the 10 beers are optional, but come highly recommended! It's almost like a prescription for working on these damned old cars! Thanks again Eric.

Kevin