Heater hose location, vintage heavy equipment

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21willys

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 8, 2011
Messages
2,751
Ok I installed a heater in my old excavator that has a perkins diesel in it. One hose is plumbed in by the thermostat and the other is right beside the lower radiator hose. I'm not getting much heat to my heater core. The engine is just below 200 degrees but the core isn't anywhere near that.

Anybody have any ideas how I can get more heat/water thru my core? I have about 7' of hose on each run but its ran thru the belly of the machine so it's not cooling off before it gets to the core.
 
You should be getting hot water out of the fitting by the thermostat and returning water into the one by the lower hose. Make sure it is pumping that direction. Then put the one from the thermostat into the bottom port on the heater core so the water flows in from the bottom and exits out the top. That allows hot water to stay in the core long enough to give off some heat. If you put it in the top one the water blows right through sometimes.

Also make sure you don't have a shut off valve somewhere in the system that isn't turned on. It is also possible that you are not circulating water at all because maybe that port by the lower hose is not really a return. Usually the water is returned to the back of the block.

Don
 
I will check the flow direction. There is no shut off valve. I just installed all of it. The machine never had heat in it from the factory.
 
Feel the hoses, they should be hot to the touch if your motor is at 200. What I suspect is that you do not have a path for the water to flow through, it is bypassing that circuit you have and not really flowing through there.

Don
 
Is the core mounted higher than the radiator? If your core is the highest component in the system, it can "air lock" and impede proper flow.

.
 
Hoses are under pressure and are warm. I was thinking about the hose configuration. I believe the top one goes to the one by the lower radiator hose.

The hoses are warm, not hot, and are under pressure if you squeeze them.
 
Like Don said, it's likely bypassing.

Your water is standing still... not circulating thru the core. Is the core mounted higher than the rest of the system????

.
 
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The core may be plugged up. I've had cores that were just not flowing enough to make any heat. I've got a handy-dandy flusher that fills the system with water and then shoots compressed air thru to blow the crud out. Just have to watch the air pressure. It will find the weak spots if too high. Good luck.
 
The core is the lowest point. It's below the engine and the radiator. The hoses do go out the top of the motor and over the motor tho. When I hooked the system up I hooked the hose by the thermostat up first and it pushed antifreeze thru the core before I had the other hose hooked up. I think I might try to put a T in the return hose with a valve on it and see if it don't have a air bouble that I can purge out thru the valve.
 
One hose has to be plumbed in to the water pump to get circulation. Without this type of hook up, you will have to put an auxiliary circulator pump in line.
 
I think Old Iron is right, most car water pumps have those ports to pump water to the heater and your industrial pump may not. See if there is some sort of pipe plug or other fitting on the water pump that you can use.

Don
 

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