It was a cold fall afternoon miles from cell phone service when the windshield suddenly fogged up followed by a strong smell of coolant. I knew immediately what just happened. Found a safe place to pull off the highway and assess the situation. In the few minutes it took to pull to the road side, it was evident there was a large loss of coolant. At that point I was wishing I had installed a mod you recommended in another post, "Making you dash air conditioner provide cooler air during hot weather." Post can be found here:
http://www.irv2.com/forums/f104/maki...er-152494.html
Having those valves installed would have made my core failure a non-event. Instead, I had to come up with a way to stop the coolant loss in order to drive back to home base. Believe it or not, the temporary fix was duct tape. Pulled the hoses from the heater core and applied tape over the male fitting on the heater core and reinstalled the hoses. The tape and the temperature control set to the cold position, was enough to prevent any leaking. Thus, avoided a large towing bill.
The by-pass valves are an easy mod and I would recommend them if for no other reason, than in the event of a temperature control valve or heater core failure. As far as the OEM heater cores, those coaches running around with those old cores, it is a matter when, not if, they will fail. Install the valves now!
Rbguinn, another thank you!
PS: wish I had not misspelled "Heater Core"
Linear Mode
