heater questions

The valve disassembles further, and below the lever is a shaft. The o-ring encircles the shaft. Its been 15 yrs since I took mine apart- can't remember the exact moves to do this but it wasn't difficult.
The steel water tubes run inside the console & above the floor so doing as you propose will require drilling two holes in the floor to run new tubes up from the water pipe area. By removing the whole console upholstering and the drivers seat, you can get to the old tubes. I suspect the engine would also have to come out to insert new tubes, as they're about 4 ft long. I've never heard of the heater tubes failing in use; what normally fails is the short hoses from tubes to/from heater valve. One guy did have a stock pipe fail, when a console retaining screw was drilled into the pipe at the factory. Instead of replacing it, he welded the defect in place as changing the tube was too much trouble. He was a Ford dealer mechanic......

Part of my last engine replacement was to remove the heater tubes and install new ones. I would never do it again. The central spine of the chassis was welded around these pipes. I cut holes through the console framing at the anchor points only to find that there are two metal surrounds that have to be removed. After the better part of a day I finally had the tubes loose only to find that the bends prevented removal. I ended up cutting one tube to get it out. I replaced the lines with 5/8" OD refrigeration copper tubing. Why did I do this to begin with? Well the ends of the tubes appeared to be corroded and I was afraid that they would eventually rust through. What I found was that these are a very heavy wall thickness and would probably have lasted forever. Running separate lines under the car may work but there is not a lot of spare space under there either and since my condenser has been moved to the front most of that space has already been used. Good luck if you take this on. I would recommend leave well enough alone and if these lines ever corrode out close your isolation valves and deal with it only when forced to.
Forest

thanks for both responses, I got the valve apart yesterday and gave it a thorough cleaning the o-ring still felt pretty soft and was not showing any signs of nicks so I put it all back together again.

Forest, thanks for the advice about the welded in pipes, I think I will just hook them back up once again and see what happens. I am thinking about using Vintage Airs electric shut-off valves so that I can turn them on and off from the driver seat.

Gary #06984