99 bluebird rear heater delete.

[Jackrabbit83]

Hi all. New here. I’m having a hard time figuring out what to use to loop the radiator hoses in order to keep the driver side heater functioning while removing the rear heater. I’ve drained all coolant and have about 8ft of hose to work with. Can’t seem to find a “U” bypass pipe or rubber hose to work with 1” rubber radiator hose. Any help would be great, still trying to figure out how to navigate the skoolie site.

TIA
Abed

[A_Bus_Called_Quest]

When you removed the rear heater you should be able to close the loop with the driver heater.
In our '95 all 3 heaters were in one long loop, so by removing 2 I just had to route the engine coolant directly to the driver heater and back, instead of engine to the door heater, then rear, then driver, then back to engine.

Does that make sense? May be different in your setup.
What engine?

[PorchDog]

I bought two plastic 90 degree elbows-- they had to order them at the auto parts store-- made for 1 inch hose, and where the line comes from the engine compartment in front of the drivers heater I used one 90 to turn it straight up, and the other 90 to turn it directly to the input of the heater core. This completely eliminates the hose loop going to the rear heater.

Here it is on Amazon-- but you can buy them cheaper on Ebay.

https://www.amazon.com/Gates-28626-H.../dp/B000CRDL1Q

I had started down the path of making a "U" tube like you talk about to bypass the rear heater -- but figured out there was a neater/slicker way to do it.

[Jackrabbit83]

Originally Posted by PorchDog

I bought two plastic 90 degree elbows-- they had to order them at the auto parts store-- made for 1 inch hose, and where the line comes from the engine compartment in front of the drivers heater I used one 90 to turn it straight up, and the other 90 to turn it directly to the input of the heater core. This completely eliminates the hose loop going to the rear heater.

Here it is on Amazon-- but you can buy them cheaper on Ebay.

https://www.amazon.com/Gates-28626-H.../dp/B000CRDL1Q

I had started down the path of making a "U" tube like you talk about to bypass the rear heater -- but figured out there was a neater/slicker way to do it.

Thank you for your reply… I’m not sure but I think our systems might be different. Underneath the bus directly to the left of the driver seat, there are two lines. From one line, 2 more narrow lines run up directly to the driver floor heater then all the way to the rear radiator heater and back up front. Then other lines crosses under the chassis to the opposite side of the bus to the heater core… I am trying to cap it or make a box with 90 degree elbows and an extra 4”-5” heater hose directly under the bus under the driver seat basically.

Those elbows you forwarded look like they would be perfect for my fix. Thank you again!

[Jackrabbit83]

Originally Posted by Bear Gerschafer

When you removed the rear heater you should be able to close the loop with the driver heater.
In our '95 all 3 heaters were in one long loop, so by removing 2 I just had to route the engine coolant directly to the driver heater and back, instead of engine to the door heater, then rear, then driver, then back to engine.

Does that make sense? May be different in your setup.
What engine?

Thank you for your reply. We have the 28” bluebird with a 24 valve Cummins diesel with an Allison transmission.

It only has one floor heater in the rear and the driver floor heater. I’ve pulled the hoses under the bus and drained all the coolant and now I am attempting to loop it with a couple 90 degree brass barbed fittings… might be overkill… they are pretty heavy duty for water fittings. wasn’t sure about plastic until I read the other reply to my post. If these ones are too heave I will be ordering the ones @porchdog recommended. Thanks again.

[Jackrabbit83]

Do you know how much coolant I’ll need to replace?