Water heater ports

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I am trying to get the auxiliaries put back together and remounted for first engine start on my ’35 845 and noticed there don’t seem to be any extra ports for plumbing a water heater. My ’35 originally was from Wisconsin and had the Southwind heater that burned gasoline in the passenger compartment, an option I think I will opt out of.

I know heaters were generally dealer installed (hence the butchered firewalls), but any comments on how they were plumbed? A tee off the top and bottom hoses?

Thanks, Jim

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Hi Jim, there were several methods, and Tee’s in the hoses is one I’ve seen.

But I think the most effective is a hole in the inlet pipe going into the waterpump, this ill be the return side from the heater.

The threaded port in the left side of the cylinder head for the water temperature bulb can have a ‘Tee’ threaded in, then the temperature bulb threaded into the ‘Tee’. The third port in the ‘Tee’ faces up, and is the hot water supply to the heater core.

Since you live in a much warmer climate than Wisconsin, I’d skip any form of heater. The plumbing clutters up the engine compartment, and just doesn’t look very good, and for your use, is really not needed.

Greg Long

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Greg, actually it gets pretty cold around here even in spring and fall when the sun goes down. My Packard has a heater and it gets used. It also has a custom evaporative cooler where the radio would have been and a 5 gallon water tank in the trunk for hot weather. I like to stay comfortable, but more importantly, I try to keep my wife comfortable, often unsuccessfully. I am cogitating on a significantly improved cooler for the Pierce.

I will probably put a heater return fitting in the pump inlet pipe. I will have a TEFBA filter in the top hose for initial start and check drives, but will fashion a bigger better filter along the lines of Jack Guyomar’s super Tefba style filter and put the goes-to heater fitting in that.

I would be reticent to put the heater fitting as part of a tee with the temp gauge bulb. Years ago I had a bad experience ferrying a friends recently purchased Packard. It had a new radiator core but for unknown reasons a pipe nipple was screwed in between the temp bulb and the head, leaving much of the bulb isolated from the head. It was reading nice and cool all the way as the radiator plugged with junk and it overheated to the point of severe knock. It is why I am big on radiator filters!

Thanks, Jim

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Hi Jim, when you rig up your hoses and connections, make sure you have a shut of valve somewhere, In the heat of the summer, you do not want that heater core to be at 160-180* coolant temperature, and sitting just above the passenger’s feet,

I’ll try to remember to take a photo of a water pump I have with a hose fitting in the inlet pipe/elbow, and post it here.

Greg

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