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I'm currently working on this 1972 Pantera. The previous guy who worked on it did some  very creative fab work or lack there off. I'm trying to fix this mess. The heater valve was taken out because it wasn't working right. Now it's by passed and I have no clue what it looked like before. I did get a new valve from Hall Pantera but I don't know if I am missing any other parts. The cable gets tightened with the clamp on the valve and the wire end goes onto the pin on the valve. Is there a clip that holds it in place and keeps it from coming off? Also, the valve assembly just sits there when it's hooked up to the hoses or does it get attached to anything, like a bracket?

Maybe someone can take a picture of their car to show how it all looks when assembled.

Thanks

 

Frank

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Panteras had either a type 2 valve with a short piece of flat stock protruding thru a contoured slot that acts as a cam to open & close the valve. Type 1 valves had a round bent rod sticking out to form the lever that shuts off water flow. Both worked equally bad when new. Inside both, there is a tiny o-ring that acts as a seal. A solid wire Bowden cable protrudes thru the attachment on whatever lever you have, and a sheet metal support bracket for the cable is usually present.  Adjustment is by how much wire sticks thru the clamping screw. About all that can go wrong is, the o-ring leaks. Oh, and the fact that the valve lever and the dash adjustment lever are mismatched such that the valve can be set to fully shut off water flow but not fully turn it on. This degrades both heater and defroster action.

Alternatively, you can set it to fully turn on but NOT fully shut off. So in this case some hot water will always be flowing, which adds a second load the AC system must overcome before you get cool air. The heater core and the AC evaporator core are bracketed firmly against each other so they share airflow thru the heater box under the dash.

In addition, the short heater hoses connecting the valve to the engine have been known to rupture at high rpms, scalding your (or your passenger's) ankles with boiling water and fogging up the windshield- usually at high speed. Crashes and injuries have resulted.

That's why Panteras that see some track events are required by Tech Inspection to have secondary positive shut off valves (hardware store 1/4-turn ball valves are popular) visible in both heater lines between the engine & valve. These are excellent safety devices for road cars, too. Much effort has been spent on upgrading this valve, often without success. Many simply remove it or bypass it- which also has its drawbacks. The archives are full of such articles.

This thing is driving me nuts. New valve installed, car all back together and it blows hot air, not warm air, but hot air. I put my hands on the aluminum tubes that go in and out of the heater core and water is going through it, very hot water that is  lol. The valve seems to let water run through it, even though when I took it out of the box and tested it, it seemed tight, I couldn't blow any air through it. I think for now I'm going to just take it off and bypass the heater core. Then later in the year come up with a different valve solution for it

It seems they can usually be adjusted to open fully or close fully, but not open and close fully. See if you can bias the cable and sheath connection the other way.

Better than that bypass you're thinking of is a separate set of valves in the heater lines within the engine bay. A set of ball valves designed for PEX plumbing systems have lovely proper sized hose barbs on the ends and work great. Some even have drains on the sides with a little brass cap.

Position the valves so you can reach up under the car to access. You won't even have to drain the car to work on the heater core/valve.

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Last edited by larryw

Some people have better results when the valve is installed on the supply hose going to heater core rather than the return hose going back to the engine. Try swapping the hoses and see if that helps. I found these valves to be pretty useless as you have discovered. I replaced my valve with an electric unit mounted by the ac compressor. It has 4 hose connections so even when the valve is closed, water still flows via through the engine heater hoses but not to the heater core. The 4 port valve does not stop flow it just diverts it. It works well.

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