Heater tap question

[Bushbasher]

Just before christmas I had a whole new a/c system fitted to the wagon that included compressor, accumulator and condenser plus a full flush and new filter as the old compressor chewed itself up and contaminated the entire system......Aaaannnyyyyway, while the a/c bloke was there I got him to replace the heater tap as well as the old one had died. Now here it my question; Is there a a right way and wrong way to fit the tap, or, can it be put in back to front? The reason I ask is that since it was fitted the heater doesn't want to work when the knob is wound round to the red side of the dial. The tap is connected and there is good vacuum and it is opening when the knob is twisted yet there is no heat forthcoming. It will eventually kick in if you leave it on hot but it can be rather erratic and be 5 minutes or over an hour. I thought there must be a blockage so pulled the hoses off at the tap and where they exit the heater core and blew compressed air through the system and it was clear. As soon as I reassembled the cooling system and started the car the heaters worked like a charm but next time in the car they were back to not working again. I can coax the system into life if I pinch off the LPG converter pipes but that's not a solution either. Prior to the new tap, the heat was on all the time due to the tap failure and as the converter gets hot and everything runs as it should I know there is good flow from the water pump. The engine temp is normal and the thermostat is a regular one, not one with the extra leg so the heater line isn't blocked.

So, back to my question about the tap being the wrong way round; there is no direction arrow on it that I can see but one side has a significantly smaller ID than the other and it would seem to me that there would have to be a pressure variance depending on the direction of flow. If that's the case is the variance causing the coolant to not flow due to back pressure created by the LPG converter return line? I hope that makes sense and if there's any hydraulics expert out there that can confirm or reject my hypothesis I'd be grateful for the input before I put the car back up on ramps and have to crawl under it on my back and wear the contents of the cooling system again.

Cheers
Bushbasher

[Maka]

Hey Bushbasher, i'm not too cluey on dual fuel cars but i can confirm that the heater tap's vacuum line is at the rear of the tap close'ish to the firewall, the actuator is slightly pointing/tilted down to the right towards the ground & cabin- if its installed wrong, the vacuumn line might not reach its location on the actuator & be to the left (towards the front of the car) looking down between the intake pipe & manifold. Hope that helps a little, hope you sort it asap!

cheers, Maka

[foxtrot3]

Hi. I dont know if it is possible on the AU as from memory it has 3/4 heater hoses but if you can find some reducing hoses for both sides of the heater try to run the 4 way heater tap from a holden and get rid of the t pieces. You run the heater hoses from the heater outlet on the head to the tap then to the core and then return to the tap and after that to the gas convertor and finally return to the water pump. When the tap is on all water goes through the heater first then to the convertor, when the tap is off the heater core is bypassed and again all water flows to the convertor. Cheers MD

[faalcon]

Hope this helps just happen to have one ready for installation (sorry for quality, done by phone)

[millview41]

Here is another one , ofcourse thei is a wrong and a right way of fitting the tap that is why they generally mould a very large arrow on it . Yours is oviously fitted the wrong way round , easily fixed take it to one of those clever Mechanics and they will do it and charge like a wounded Bull , or else you could do it yourself by undoing both hoses take the tap out turn it a half of a full turn and refit it making sure you tighten the hose clamps whe they are in place and whatever you do , refil the Radiator and refil it again when the Engine is at operating temperature ( Very very carefully )

[millview41]

I have to log out , there are far to many silly questions and blokes spending hundreds of dollars when they dont need to .
I wonder if it would be possible for the people that Administer this excellent site and have somone specially setup to answer questions and charge a small fee for doing so . This could make someone a bit of pocket money and save a lot of people hundreds of dollars .
There we go , $1.00 per question for a sensible and guaranteed correct answer but not for instuctions as if they don't know , they won't know how .

[Bushbasher]

Crawl back under your rock you condescending old git. If you bothered to read my original post properly you'd see that I clearly said there was no arrow on my particular tap and that I wanted to know what was what before I removed it again, not one of those "clever mechanics".

Asking what you consider "silly questions" is one of the very reasons forums like this exist, to help one another and to share knowledge and hopefully save people some of those hundreds of dollars you're whinging about. Not everyone on the forum knows everything about everything as you clearly think you do so if our oh so inadequate reasoning skills and ignorance causes you distress then maybe forums where us lesser mortals try to help each other out is not the place for someone of your superior intellect to be hanging around.


Bushbasher

[Bushbasher]

0k, after further investigation today and getting back under the wagon I discovered the tap was in fact correctly fitted and isn't a factory one but a generic one. The reason there was no heat was that the offset bend of the actuator arm was catching on the diaphragm casing when it passed through it when the tap was trying to open. A little friendly persuasion with some needle nose pliers to reshape the arm slightly so it didn't catch and and it's all sorted.

Bushbasher