no heat

[mfrederick]

i have some questions...just curious if anyone has some input.

Just reconnected my inside the bus middle / rear heater and refilled the radiator. My coolant level bulb is showing full but i know more is needed. I extracted at least 10 gallons plus some that ran out onto the ground. I only put about 8 gals back in.

I have 12v on the heater pump i metered it to confirm. Didn't check right on the unit, but 5 ft before the pump wire goes through the floor at the rear of the bus it has 12v.

The pump has not been run since i bought the bus back in sept 09, because i just discovered it's existence today when trying to diagnosis no heat....the bus temp guage shows under 100 degrees.

Two issues i'm thinking...1.) heater pump is locked up/frozen since it's not be turned on for who knows how long. 2.) the thermostat on the bus is locked up cause i had no water in the bus for the last month while i was working on the heater hose routing etc.

Oh and one more thing...are there any hidden bleeder valves to flush all the air out? were is the main bleeder valve for the engine?

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Marc

[Elliot Naess]

Don't know about your bus specifically, but there could be bleeder valves at all sorts of high points in the system.

And as Smitty says, look for shut-off valves. They usually look like garden hose faucets. (but not always)

Finally, see if the temperature control valve moves when you move the lever (or knob) on the dash. On my bus, that cable appears to have been stuck open since WWI -- yours might be stuck shut.

[mfrederick]

I have both valves the high side and low side all the left position/open position. The high side "garden gate valve" exits the engine and enters the heating system by way of a water pump that has a 12v lead to the driver control panel. The low side returns to the low side of the radiator on the exit side so the water returns to the engine for heating/bypassing the radiator.

Both valves are open. The low side turns approx 15 rotations and stops in open. It can go back the other way same rotations to close. The high side only turns about 1 and half turns. stuck? or is that normal? they look like similar style gate valves so i'm surprised the high one only turns 1 and half turns.

I do see a butterfly style water valve on top of the 3208T catipillar, but it has a steal braided hose going to it so i'm assuming it's not a water line but could be since it's a high place on the engine and looks like the drain cock style valve you'd see on the bottom of your radiator.

[NewSkewlHauler]

My 8.2L Detroit needed a winterfront, 15 minutes of idling, and 15 minutes of driving to move the temp gauge off of 100*. Once I was moving down the road the temp gauge moved to 120* and stayed there...it got all kinds of hot in the bus at that point. Is it possible that it's just a cold-blooded thing like mine appears to be? Just a thought!

Ben.

[mfrederick]

ok...my buddy came over this morning and just reached to turn the high side...and it turned like 10+ rotations to ACTUALLY open. i didn't force it. my bad. I'll try to run it this afternoon after my computer class...teach 40 home schoolers how to use a computer

Thanks for sounding off your ideas.

Marc

[mfrederick]

ok...so i opened the gate fully, but the radiator did not really pull much more than about half a gallon to refresh the watch glass. Still no heat. Is the pull knob on the dash board for heat supposed to open a gate for flow to resume? maybe it's stuck?

Marc

[Elliot Naess]

That was the third item in my post above.