Info on Heater hose routing for CJ?

[Chuck Wolfsen]

Hi;

When I got my 83 CJ7 the heater hoses were disconnected. My sis said that her husband disconnected all the hoses when the heater core died. I just replaced the core but I don't know how to route the heater hoses. I'm guessing I gotta get them to and from the water pump and the intake manifold....guessing. Strange that the internet search doesn't yield much results. Any help...pics, links, would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Saddle Tramp]

The hose that attaches to the thermostat housing is the out flow from the engine to the heater core and should attach to the left (drivers) side pipe at the firewall. The out flow from the heater core would then be the right (passenger) side of the two pipes and connect to the water pump. In reality it probably doesn’t mater which way the coolant passes through the heater core.

 

[SteelHeadz]

X2, there is no flow valve to speak of on a heater core so it doesn't really matter which one of the tubes you install the lines to. I would think that it would probbably be more practical to install the thermostat outlet to the lower end of the heater core to make it easier to purge the air out.

 

[Chuck Wolfsen]

Thanks for the tips. What I found was that my bro-in-law had taken the heater core out of the loop by joining the hose from the water pump to the hose from the back side of the intake manifold (next to the fire wall). Since the hoses were still in good shape I re-routed them to the top/bottom of the heater core to put it back in the loop. Rather than drain the radiator to the level of heater I clamped off the hoses using vise grips and attached them to the heater tubes extending from the fire wall and snugged them down with hose clamps. The only mess was a little coolant on the floor to clean up and "voila!" we got heat for the first time in say...10 years. It was a bit of a knuckle buster getting it all back together but in the end I'm happy with the result. If I had more time I'd do the chevy blower swap but my son says the stock heater is working just fine.