On my '93 Caprice, there is a hose coming out of the firewall that goes to the heater core. There is a flow meter valve in the hose that you can see from under the hood. The valve has gone bad, and it started to leak.
The hose with the valve is all built as one piece, and is very expensive through GM. Furthermore, I would have to replace the hose on the heater core, which means I'd have to take the wiper motor out and get behind the heater core, etc. Not a good job.
My car has 222,000 miles, and I am looking to sell it soon. I am not going to spend a lot of money on fancy hoses from GM at this point. I would like to simply splice a t-valve or something in the hose and get rid of the valve altogether. Has anyone done anything like this? Do you even follow what I'm talking about?
TIA! Posted by DaddySS (Member # 848) on :
If your 93 Caprice has the same set up as my 96 impala, the hose connects to the heater core at the firewall. The valve is not a valve but actually a flow restrictor to control pressure to the core at high RPM. If the restrictor is leaking I can't imagine that a piece of plastic with the center 2/3 blocked would be expensive but you can replace it with a simple piece of pipe and add a restrictor of your choice.
You should not need to go into the heater housing to replace the hose if you choose to go that route.
Posted by Hawkeye (Member # 88) on :
Well, Greg is in my office with me now. His suggestion. Cut the original hose to by pass the valve and buy a T to fit into it's place. If the hose has crimped ends carefully cut the crimp off with a dremmel and reattach with regular hose clamps.
That should be an ecomical fix instead of high GM prices.
[ 31. December 2003, 11:25 AM: Message edited by: Hawkeye ]
Posted by Orange 01 SS (Member # 1700) on :
Thanks, guys! I'll give something like this a try!
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)