The Little Things, Part I

Just wanted to outline a few little bits done to the car lately. I don't know if there will be Parts II or III of little bits. Probably. Maybe not. Who knows. Maybe if you people would bug me to write more, I'd write more. Don't look at me like that, we both know it's your fault.

Today's little things is all about heat.

Heater Tubing

Technically, it's a hose. But, everybody assumes the water hoses when I say hose, not the air hoses. Anyhow, the original paper/foil ducting from the heater box to the defroster vents turned to dust when I touched it. After much research I came across something called "carburetor preheat/emissions duct," Goodyear part #65924. Seems hard to find, but Summit could get it, lucky for me 'cause Summit has a big warehouse right nearby.

Looks something like this

I picked up three of them, but two would have worked if I measured things right. Good thing I got three. Anyhow, I could make up a lot of words to go in here, but it's pretty simple. Cut to length, squeeze onto the vents and heater box outlets. This isn't rocket surgery.

Snakes in a car.

More Heater Tubing

Hah, you thought this would be about something else! The Volvo 1800 uses a Ranco heater control valve. Reproductions are available but would cost about as much as I spent on the car. We'll save that for a last resort option. First resort was to use the valve I had. This worked fine until I tried to turn off the heater and dribbled coolant all over my passenger's shoe (sorry 'bout that, Dave). Well, the weather is turning warmer so an always-on heater is no longer an option.

El Cheapo Strikes Again!

What you're looking at is a generic straight-through heater control valve. Costs $15 on Amazon. You're also looking at a 180 degree bend hose and a back-flush kit. Here's how it works: Plug the existing line from the radiator into the outlet of the valve. Hook the 180 between the valve inlet and the back-flush kit. Plug the line from the motor into the other side of the back-flush kit. The back flush kit does a couple of things for us. First of all, it lets us couple the existing hose to the bent hose (most important function). Second, it is the high-point on the cooling system and is an excellent place to fill from to reduce the chance of trapping air (second most important function). Third, it let's you back-flush your cooling system (but who cares about that anyway?).

I'll seal off the opening eventually...

So, how does it work? Hmm... Not very well actually. The valve is fully actuated by the existing control, but it never seems to fully close off. Air goes from "hey, that's pretty warm" to "oh my god my toes are melting!" Of course, this could be from having a big black metal box mounted right behind the motor and picking up engine bay heat. Further analysis is needed, but I may end up swapping the control valve.

And with that, I leave you on a down note! Until next time!