Heater water valve

[john.p.clegg]

Mark

I think Pete posted a photo of his recently,basically it's a 15mm compression elbow,one side screws into the head,the other side has a 15mm copper pipe/olive fitted into the hose......looks damn fine to me...

John

[patrics]

Hi Mark,

After seeing what Pete had done I went and brought a 90 deg Connector from Chandlery World. Haven't fitted it yet but the photo should give you enough info.

Regards
Steve

[billwill]

Yet another question from me... as you can guess, I'm at the sort-out-the-details stage as the basics are now close to right (rear Konis and 3.54 diff going in this weekend).

I've fitted a new heater valve. How do you get the thing to turn off without doing it manually under the bonnet? The last bit of movement into the detent requires such force that the outer cable stretches before the valve lever moves that final few degrees. New inner and outer cables too. Is there a way of modifying the valve to make the movement easier? I've tried smoothing off the angles in the slot in which the lever moves, and twisting both sides of the lever to reduce the angle of attack, but though better it's still too stiff at the cold end of the travel.

Maybe it's a 'standard' fault. Various contemporary road tests mention the impossibility of turning the heater right off.

John

Is that an Elan or is it an Elan+2 ?

On the Elan the Heater Cable has a solid core wire and you PUSH it in in the cabin to close the valve, so there is no way the outer could stretch; pushing puts the outer in compression.

Having said that I think you need to ensure that the run of the cable is as straight as possible so you may need to rotate the water valve a little. Since it is on a tapered thread (I think) this means that you take it out and wind PTFE tape around the thread as a seal and then screw it in.

Even so it is hard to get the valve into that notch of the fully closed position; however on mine, when it is pushed fully in though the valve is not quite fully closed there is so little hot water getting throgh to the heater that it doesn't matter.

[fatboyoz]

John,
I have left the two springs out of mine. The lever moves easily and seals OK when blowing into it. Have not tried it on the car.
Colin.

Yet another question from me... as you can guess, I'm at the sort-out-the-details stage as the basics are now close to right (rear Konis and 3.54 diff going in this weekend).

I've fitted a new heater valve. How do you get the thing to turn off without doing it manually under the bonnet? The last bit of movement into the detent requires such force that the outer cable stretches before the valve lever moves that final few degrees. New inner and outer cables too. Is there a way of modifying the valve to make the movement easier? I've tried smoothing off the angles in the slot in which the lever moves, and twisting both sides of the lever to reduce the angle of attack, but though better it's still too stiff at the cold end of the travel.

Maybe it's a 'standard' fault. Various contemporary road tests mention the impossibility of turning the heater right off.

John

[dogmotor]

Hi Mark,

After seeing what Pete had done I went and brought a 90 deg Connector from Chandlery World. Haven't fitted it yet but the photo should give you enough info.

Regards
Steve

Thanks much Steve and John - exactly what I needed!!

[edit]
Hmm. The original HCV uses a tapered thread. Will parallel work??
[/edit]

[johnsimister]

Is that an Elan or is it an Elan+2 ?

On the Elan the Heater Cable has a solid core wire and you PUSH it in in the cabin to close the valve, so there is no way the outer could stretch; pushing puts the outer in compression.

It's an Elan +0, as mentioned earlier. The outer cable stretches when I push the knob hard against the valve's resistance. The solid inner cable bows out as it has nowhere to go, and the outer cable stretches to accommodate the bowing. Pushing doesn't put the outer cable under compression - it's a passive, and flexible, tube. It's the inner that would be compressed, were it compressible.

I have now perpetrated a minor bodge in the form of a spring hooked between the inner cable clamp and the radiator. It provides just enough extra force to move the valve over the detent. I'm hoping it will all loosen up eventually, then I'll remove the spring.

John