Ive got my heater box all hooked up (non a/c), and I was thinking about doing something a little different. I dont have a diverter valve, so basically I've got one hose (3/4") going from the radiator to the heater core, and a smaller hose (5/8") going from the heater core to the front of the intake manifold. The way I want to route the hoses, Id have to make a few harsh turns resulting in a crimped hose. Easy way would to just get some plastic 90 degree fittings, but I want a cleaner look.

So I was thinking about bending up some hardlines, mounting them to the radiator and the intake, and conneting them to the heater core with some small rubber hose (maybe 2" in length) just for flexing. Only thing Im trying to figure out is what type of pipe? Id really like it to be aluminum, or better yet stainless steel, and get a conduit pipe bender and bend them the way I want them. Then after all bending is done, polish em all up and slap em on. Does anyone have the slightest idea on what Im trying to do?

Or better yet, the basic question Im asking over this entire thing, where can I get some aluminum/stainless steel pipe that's thin enough to bend by "hand" with a bender, and small enough to fit inside some 3/4" and 5/8" heater hoses? Would electrical conduit work? I never noticed what material it's made of. I would need about 2' of the 5/8" pipe and 3' of the 3/4" pipe.

 

Elecrical conduit is galvanized steel, so probably a bad idea. On top of that wall thickness is on the thicker side and it has a seam. Stainless would be the longest lasting by far. Not sure where you would find it though. In a perfect world the bends would be mandrel bent to elminate the flow restriction caused by the crush bend. All round interesting idea, I look forward to seeing what you come up with.

 

Heavy wall galvanized steel would be much better than the plain old thin-walled mild steel pipes that GM used on millions of cars over the years. It'd be a nightmare to bend, though. I don't like steel for carrying coolant, you can't tell when it's about to give way until it suddenly lets go.

 

electric metallic tubing (EMT) is a thin wall conduit, though it cannot be bent by "hand" in a tight radius, 1/2" EMT is about 3/4" OD and usually is bent in a 5" radius, and 3/4" EMT is about 1" OD and usually bent in a 6' radius. You could use soft copper tubing, 5/8 of 3/4 od whatever you want. you can bend it by hand, probably a little tighter that the EMT. Of course it copper color...

Or, if you can solder and get to the heater core connections, ie the motor is out, you can do what i did, solder copper 90degree slip x female fittings to the core and use AN line

first pic i messed with the colors so you can see better

and a slightly close pic


so far its working very well.

 

that looks killer, I want!! Do you by any chance have a part# for the colder fittings? Ive never seen those before, something I can get at like an Ace hardware or something? I can solder motherboards and electronics, but Ive never tried piping

 

You can buy the fittings at any hardware store in the plumbing aisle... they're for putting a pipe-threaded end on a brass/bronze/copper pipe. Soldering pipe is much easier than soldering electronics.

 

awesome, so do they make those solder ends with AN fittings already made onto them, or what type of ends do they usually come with? Trying to figure out how it converts the lines to -AN

EDIT: re-read the post, I guess they usually come with NPT fittings on the end. So that should be easy anough to convert from NPT to -AN.

 

They'll be female pipe. You can see in his picture he's got NPT to AN adapters threaded in them.

 

yup, any good plumbing supply will have them. IIRC they are 5/8 OD to 1/2 female NPT and 3/4" OD to female NPT, and both are 90 degree fittings. 3/4OD is a slightly difficult size to get, not the same as 3/4 trade size.

as you can also see from the pic, its VERY tight fit back there, but a good point of reference, there is a grounding stud on the firewall that also holds on the far edge of the heater box, you can see it in the second pic. the 2 fittings need to straddle it, its almost a 45 degree angle to passenger side.

the heater core lines have "ribs" on the ends, you need to cut them off, and make really damn sure they pipes are clean before you solder and dont forget the acid flux. Its not a spot you want to have a leak.

I also dont know if this will work with A/C, i have a delete box.

 

well what really sucks about this idea is when I got my new dash and heater box, I specifically bought a new heater core so I wouldnt have to pull it back out for a while And I really dont want to put a torch to my car with it still installed (if it's even possible to do so while still installed, I doubt though), so I guess it'll have to wait. Either way though, this is definitely going on the to-do list after I get the HSR fired off!

Just out of curiosity, what size AN lines did you use? -6 too small? Ive got plenty of that laying around right now

 

i did it with the core installed, just keep the heat under control

its -10an

 

was the motor installed as well? Seems like a hell of a tight space back there. How were you able to get the bottom of the pipes sealed? Again, Ive neer soldered pipes so Im not sure how everything works

 

motor was out, i dont see it happening with much ease with the motor in the car. There is probably enough room with the heater box removed and the plug wires out of the way, remove the valve cover ect to do it, just need to be careful not to burn anything

When soldering pipes, you use flux, its a paste. You heat the pipe with a torch, and when its hot enough, add the solder. The solder will be drawn into the connection, replacing the flux that you added earlier. You can actually make the solder go up hill, around corners ect.

 

wow, thats sounds pretty easy actually. I might have to get someone out there who knows what the hell they're doing though. Thanks for all the info man, I cant wait to get started on this now!

 

It's not difficult, just be careful that you don't burn up the paint on the firewall with the torch, and don't put so much heat into the pipe that you start burning the insulation behind the firewall or melt the soldered joints on the core itself.

 

, try to keep the heat aimed away form the firewall. There are foam grommets in the wall where the pipes come through, if they start burning/melting you doing it wrong.