62 heat control valve

[David Hawkins]

Another part falls victim to 25 years of sitting idle...

We took the car out to test out my carb tuning (which seems to be paying off in the short drive we managed). About 200 yards from the house, coolant started dripping onto my wife's foot. We got it home and coolant was coming out of the heat control valve at a pretty good rate.

As I read the repair manual, the heat control valve is opened with the pull knob, but there is a capillary tube that varies the position of the valve to try and maintain a constant temperature in the core..is that correct? I looked at Doc Rebuild's site and he has a replacement for the valve, but it doesn't accomodate the capillary tube. If I've got the operation right, I don't think I'd ever miss the cap tube...but I want to be sure it does what I think it does before I buy a replacement without it.

I assume there's no way to rebuild the control valve? It looks like it's just a rubber plunger that's allowing the leak. I hate to to toss out something that can fixed.

 

[JERRY JEUP]

Dave; Just finished up changing my valve on 61. Tried to fix the old 1, took it apart as far as I could. Don't think it can be done.
Bought new one from Paragon, slightly different, but is working great. I also changed ALL the hoses & elbows (2 each) No big deal.

 

[David Hawkins]

Thanks. I removed the valve today and bypassed it with a piece of hose for the time being. The old one didn't have the capillary tube, so it's probably a replacement too. Time to start putting together another wish list!

 

[IH2LOSE]

Sorry I could not help.

Allthough I own a 62 its not excactly stock.

Mine as well get a couple of pages ready for your wish list. Youll be suprised once you start tinkering all of the stuff you can put on a wish list.

Enjoy

 

[David Hawkins]

LOL...I discovered the Corvette World catalog tonight. I don't think there's a page in it without something highlighted.

On another note, without the heater core leaking we took the car on a 25 mile drive last night. It idles without a spewing a cloud of unburned gas and is firing on all 8. It's finally the car I wanted to drive home from Carlisle!! WOT still isn't pretty, but I can deal with that for the time being.

 

[IH2LOSE]

What dont you like about WOT

 

[John Mcgraw]

David,

The repro valves can be reworked to add the capillary tube to it. You can remove the capillary tube system from an old valve and install it on the new one for originality, but most of these thermostatic systems lost their charges years ago, and are really non-functioning. It was an attempt to regulate the heater temp regardless of the outside air temp being brought in. I thought that the thermostatic system had been didcontinued by 62, but I could be wrong. All the service replacements for many, many years have not had them. I believe that 61 was the last year for the thermostatic control of the valve.


Regards, John McGraw

 

[David Hawkins]

Thanks John. The valve I took off did not have the cap tube, and I wasn't planning to sweat it when I replace it. Considering I have about $5K to spend to make it even LOOK like it's not a driver, cap tubes are the least of my worries

IH2LOSE, under WOT it stumbles a bit. Nothing terrible, but it's obvious the car doesn't like being there.