ok, installed heater went to rtest it and the standard water bypass valve had a crack in it and leaked inside the car. yay .

I did a wurzel and put a manual water shut off valve in there now lol. all connected back up but heres my question:

how much overlap does the hose have to have on the connection?

I understand its at about 11-14 psi pressure and temps of 100deg, but on the copper bends im using i get the width of the clamp and the same again to the end of the fitting. so maybe 5-6mm bite under clamp and same to end of fitting.

Am i risking them poping off or the clamp will be fine to hold them on.

Just thought of it after i reinstalled it all and topped up the coolant.

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I think you need 1.5 width of the clamp. Or use the original type Datsun wire clamps which bite harder than a stainless worm clamp.


Did you use this bush method?

yeah i did, for $10 aud for the parts- mine is a fair bit neater under the dash though.
will have to take pics tonight, just hoping the pressure wont leak past the bend-joins

mine looks like this: just have to make sur e never to turn all the way off.

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Why not?

It will not do any harm to the engine as the standard one shuts off the coolant flow completely anyway & the heater is an option in some models in some parts of the world, so without it the coolant flow via the heater circuit is non existant, since there is no heater in some vehicles.

Just make sure that the valve is open when filling the cooling system after system flushing. Once all the air is purged from the heater the valve can be closed if desired.

all the heater taps i have had from stock still have a trickle of colant that passes thriugh them, just like those little holes drilled into thermostats.

i was always under the impression so coolant would not sit stagnant in the heater core

I just did mine yesterday, got a heap of 90 deg elbows and straight connectors from some Nissan pulsars (wreckers). Not that it's much help now, but they didn't charge me anything for them (though I did buy something else for like $8 bucks!).

Regarding the tap; I had a 1000 heater and the core had the tap bypassed so there was no tap whatsoever, it simply ran all the time. Not a bad idea really, not sure how that affects how long the core lasts though. As long as the systems clean I suppose it has a good chance.

The good thing about the elbows that I got is that they had a collar near the ends, meaning they were manufactured to carry coolant/liquid and as long as you have the right hose ID you won't run the risk of having one blow off.

The clamps are pretty strong but you can understand that water fittings tend to have collars (bulge just before the end of the pipe/fitting) to ensure that the clamp rests nicely before it and so that the hose cannot come off.

So I guess you need enough overlap to go over the collar and enough for the width of the clamp.

If the 'in-line' valve that you have has barbs on the fittings either side (inlet/outlet) you should be fairly safe as well.

Here is a pic of one of the joiners, see the ends?

EDIT: It looks like you have some sort of gas pipe copper. Be careful not to over-tighten and crush the fittings. Perhaps add some sealing gasket compound (hylomar??) to the joins seeing as they don't have much of a collar for the tightened clamp/hose to rest against.

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I figured teh reason stock heater cocks always pass a trickle is that they are just cheap units. Make them just good enough to do the job.

im with dd on that one, pretty sure they are supposed to actually seal. otherwise the heater will always be slightly on as there will always be an amount of hot water flowing through the core

and no wonder you never had a heater working before, look how much effort you have to put into plumbing the thing up