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Old 11-17-2019, 01:35 PM   #21
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Originally Posted by Crookedgarage View Post
Okay i have a 95 Thomas rear engine 8.3 cummins. with the radiator on the side i'm going to buy/make louvor vanes for the radiator, and the same for an auxiliary tank to compensate the fluid loss. i found a bent 180 deg. 1 inch tube at work that redirected fluid back to the engine, so i don't need the pump anymore......But not so fast on getting rid of the pump because..... as for the front defrost i'll most likely T-off the maybe needing that pump to direct a 1/2 inch line to the defrost. since i'm already living in it i keep it warm anyway. Anybody got any rebuttal...please i'm open.
-not sure what you mean by The auxiliary tank, what that’s all about?
-how are you using the 180 deg bend if you’re sending a 1/2” line to the defrost.
-louvor is good idea I hope to do. Post picture when you get it.

If you run a 1/2” line to the defroster it’s probably going to work just fine, though personally I ran a 1” just so I could use the most engine heat and save on propane when driving. Even a 3/4” line would hardly cost more than a 1/2” if cost is why you chose 1/2”. The heater also helps lower engine temps if it’s getting too hot on the hills and mountains. And why take out the pump unless you’re removing all the heaters; it won’t harm anything and could only help pump the coolant.

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Old 11-17-2019, 04:55 PM   #22
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And some people add a 12 volt fan or two blowing through the radiator for extra cooling when needed. That is also supposed to help and those fans are not expensive.
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Old 11-17-2019, 07:11 PM   #23
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Hmmm. I have a switch that says heater pump. I don’t know where the pump is. I have tested the defroster and front heater and they work great. My rear heater was deleted. My coolant loop seems to be working fine. I bled the air in the front after I changed coolant a few months ago (pusher), and the red stuff was very hot. So what do I use the pump for? Forgive me, it’s a butt cold day here when the high doesn’t get above 50 degrees. However I do plan on traveling.....
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Old 11-17-2019, 09:32 PM   #24
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The pump is just to increase the flow of coolant through the bus heaters. It will still get through with the engine water pump or at least some should but if you switch it on it just increases the flow for colder days I guess.

The pump should be close to the engine probably on the upper coolant hose that feeds the heaters. If you switch on your ignition but not the engine and make sure coolant pump is off, after 20 or so seconds listen to all the noises you hear back there; then go switch on the pump and you should hear the pump making a new noise. Mine wasn’t hooked up for some reason the wire was cut so I reattached it and it seems to work fine.
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Old 11-17-2019, 09:58 PM   #25
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If you’re deleting all your heaters there’s no need to loop the coolant lines back together. You can simply switch off the valves and cap them or just cap them right after the engine and take the valves out too. There should be a valve at each end of the heater hose loop. If you follow along from one end to the other you’ll find both the valves. It won’t affect regular engine cooling if you cap them off.
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Old 11-18-2019, 09:40 AM   #26
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I did some calculations for the area inside the hose for the coolant to flow through with 3 sizes of coolant hose. (A = π r2) that’s r squared not x2

1” hose = 0.79 square inches
3/4” hose = 0.44 square inches
1/2” hose = 0.2 square inches

Just keep that in mind when/if anybody down sizes the coolant lines with 3/4 inch hose you should get about 56% of the flow as would 1” hose and with 1/2” hose you’ll get about 25% of the flow as you would from 1” hose. Hope that helps.
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Old 11-18-2019, 11:41 AM   #27
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Thanks for doing the math. I was already determined to stick with 1 inch, and your math sopports my gut feeling. And I have no intention of deleting my pump. It's there for a reason.
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Old 11-18-2019, 04:34 PM   #28
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1/2"Inner Diameter flows 6-8 gallons per minute
3/4"ID flows 8-10 gpm
1"ID flows 10-12 gpm
dependent on pressure and type of fluid but with rubber tubing it also swells up a little as it heats up.
no reason not to run full size to a smaller heater coil.
long explanation short if it doesnt do enough then you have the line size there to upgrade the coil to a bigger size.
a few more tricks if your engine cooling is happy is to use ball valves instead of gate valves at each coil/heater put your hottest coolant into the inlet/bottom connection of the coil and because heat rises the return on the outlet and if your little coil isnt getting hot enough then close the quarter turn ball valve on the outlet/return to engine line down a little bit to slow the coolant flow through the heater coil to allow the fans to give you max heat off of the coil.
if you have to choke it down more closer to closed than halfway to get what you want out of it then get a bigger coil.
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Old 12-12-2019, 08:51 PM   #29
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So I have a similar question: Am I risking overheating my engine via loss of overall amount of coolant by deleting my back heater and the lines that feed it? I have a 24 foot shortie, and there’s a pump halfway between rear heater and front heater. Can I remove that also?

Basically, if I just take out the back heater, lines, and pump, will anything else be affected?
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Old 12-12-2019, 09:11 PM   #30
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I don't know how much help this will be. My situation is pretty different than yours. My RE BlueBird is 35 or 36 feet. The booster pump is in the engine compartment on the right side, next to the battery box. There are valves near the pump to close both the supply and return lines for the heaters. I closed those valves and then removed the 2 heaters and all the lines as far as the footwarmer under the driver. Both front heater cores and the lines connecting them are still in place, as is much of the rat's nest I found in next to the big heater. I would like to replace everything and clean up the rest of the rat mess, but I haven't got there yet.

I haven't driven the bus since I removed the heaters and drained several gallons of anti-freeze in the process. But I have idled it enough to know that it takes just as long to warm up as it used to take. Except for getting cold, or having the windshield steam up, I would not hesitate to drive the bus without the heater circuit being full of coolant. If the rest of the system is full there will be plenty of coolant to cool the engine without the heater loop being full.

I hope this helps.
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Old 12-12-2019, 10:38 PM   #31
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Taking the heaters out won’t effect the regular cooling in the engine; the coolant will circulate through the radiator and back through the engine as it normally does. The only benefit you will loose is that when the engine does run hot you can run the heaters to help cool it down. I used to do that on one of my old trucks, when towing my old travel trailer up mountains we’d roll down the windows and crank the heat when the temp started to go too high.

The amount of coolant in the system doesn’t really matter; what matters is the cooling system (Engine and radiator) is full and it’s circulating through the radiator. And if you’re removing the heaters you may as well remove the heater booster pump; all it does is push the coolant up to the heaters and back to the engine to warm up again. The regular engine water pump is perfectly fine to circulate the coolant through the radiator.
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Old 12-12-2019, 11:04 PM   #32
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My front heater would not work until I joined the lines for the removed rear heater together to form a loop. On another bus the rear heater lines joined together got a air lock in them and the engine ran cooler after the air came out. So they are important on my buses.
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Old 12-13-2019, 09:49 AM   #33
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Depends on where your bus came from, my bus was in Kentucky, three heaters. When I removed the rear heater and looped the hose together my bus would overheat in the hot California climate. International said hot climate busses have an extra thick radiator because cold climates need heaters and use the heater as part of the engine cooling system. So if I start to overheat I turn on the heaters and the engine temp drops. Some day I will add a larger radiator - but for now... I turn on the heaters. Cheers
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Old 12-13-2019, 11:01 AM   #34
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Sounds reasonable. What if the bus is driven from a cool place to a hot place then overheated. Maybe school buses are not meant to be moved to a different climate. In which case the thousands of ex-school buses in Central America may have needed new radiators.
I thought maybe I could simply add a big oil cooler on the engine to help the cooling system. Someone told me it doesn’t work that way. I’m still thinking it might work ok.
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Old 12-13-2019, 11:49 AM   #35
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dirtdoctor View Post
Depends on where your bus came from, my bus was in Kentucky, three heaters. When I removed the rear heater and looped the hose together my bus would overheat in the hot California climate. International said hot climate busses have an extra thick radiator because cold climates need heaters and use the heater as part of the engine cooling system. So if I start to overheat I turn on the heaters and the engine temp drops. Some day I will add a larger radiator - but for now... I turn on the heaters. Cheers
Can you imagine being a student on a bus in a cold climate on a 80 or 90 degree spring/summer day and the driver switches on the heater? Doesn’t sound right to me.

It is nice to have the option to have help from the heaters but I can’t imaging buses being built to need the heat running or else the engine overheats. You might have a problem in your cooling system if you need the heater on during normal driving though.
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Old 12-13-2019, 02:49 PM   #36
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Quote:
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Can you imagine being a student on a bus in a cold climate on a 80 or 90 degree spring/summer day and the driver switches on the heater? Doesn’t sound right to me.

It is nice to have the option to have help from the heaters but I can’t imaging buses being built to need the heat running or else the engine overheats. You might have a problem in your cooling system if you need the heater on during normal driving though.
Right? pegged my BS meter as well...

Take places like CO where one day in January is sub-zero and the next day it's in the 60's
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Old 12-13-2019, 10:04 PM   #37
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Adding a larger radiator is a good thing if you’re adding a oil cooler I’d just spend the $$ in the larger radiator. On 100 degree F days I’d pull a hill and watch the tempClimb- flip on the two remaining heaters in the bus, and the buzzer would go out in a couple seconds. Turn them off and soon the buzzer would go on again. It’s not a volume of water issue. It’s how fast you can change the temp
Of that water. Cooling it off.
Cheers.
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Old 12-14-2019, 12:08 AM   #38
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“ It’s not a volume of water issue. It’s how fast you can change the temp
Of that water. Cooling it off. ”

Yes well put.
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Old 12-15-2019, 12:37 AM   #39
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So I did my rear heater delete yesterday. Bad news, I don't get warm air to the front heater anymore. I lost about 1.5 gallons of coolant from the lines, but refilled the reservoir. The front heater is still in the loop. Took out the rear pump, coolant lines, heater, and electrical, but now no hot air blows out the front heater. What the deuce?

Am I missing a possibility or a step here?
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Old 12-15-2019, 01:22 AM   #40
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Is it a front engine or rear engine?
You may have air in the lines, look for a bleeder valve at a high point on the heater core or on a heater line to get air out. Or try driving around for a while with the heater on high (not the fan), high rpm’s help. Check the coolant reservoir every little while to make sure it’s not emptying. After engine cools, top up the radiator and do it again.
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