Oh no...it's not broken at any of the nipples. That would be easy to spot.
It's leaking from around the hat area, and only does so when the heater is off and the vent is on.
Why the hell did they make these outta plastic?
Anyway to bypass it and keep the heater working? I live in the Boston/ Rhode island area and so heat is a necessity.

 

http://shop.advanceautoparts.com/web...m=heater+valve

It costs 17 bucks and they have them in stock here near my house. You can get them off of eBay for the same price.

I think you'll be happier if you just replace it. I had to undo a "bypass" and it was made out of some horrible plastic crap from home depot.

 

But everytime I replace one they fail. The roads here shake the hell out of everything. Plastic doesn't like all the violence.

 

Try it again.

I'm really hard on equipment and I haven't had one fail yet. I only have to replace them because they are missing or I break them during some other operation.

I've got mine hanging, suspended mid air by the surrounding hoses on one, and attached to a little bracket on my V6 car. Maybe you just need to mount it in some sort of rubber cushion.

 

u can bypass it , i do it on every -fbody i own,( them plastic valves always break on me at the worst times) the only down side is in the summer u will get a lil bit of heat out of the vents when u are driving.

i bypass the vlave in the winter so i still have heat then i bypass it so water dont circulate into the heater core in the summer since my car had ac

if u dont have ac u can just leave it so woater always circulated threw the heater core

u can also get a gm i think its the g-body ones that are made out of metal instead of plastic

in order to bypass it u need some hose and 2 water pipe rubber caps


if u dont want to bypass it get some extra long hoses and move the new control valve over twards the fender more away from the hot ex manifold, the heat from the manifold is what makes them get so brittle

 

I'll most likely bypass it. I still have ac but wouldn't the temp control slider keep the heater flap thing closed when the ac on?
How would I route and cap things off to bypass it?

 

its been a while since ive done one id have to be staring at it to tell u which lines to connect to which lines

yeah but u still get a lil heat leaking out even if u set the slider to cold

 

That'd still be better than replacing the plastic valve every other month it seems.

 

OK weird today I go to go to rot my guts with burger king, turned the vent on and switched to cold and no leak.
Is this going to be a temperamental piece?

 

Not sure why yours keep falling apart like that... Ohio speedbumps (basically parking stops!), very nasty RR crossings (that cracked my windshield), and just about anything else hadn't hurt my HCV one little bit. And it's just a cheapie GP Sorenson or something like that.

Problem with the HCV setup is that both lines running to the heater core have pressurized coolant coming from the core in them. I would have thought that GM would have just welded the other tube to the long runner, but I was wrong. Found that out when I wanted to try to modify mine to delete the HCV (which is useless with a 4th gen dash).

The only way to get rid of the HCV is to get a non-A/C pipe or remove the whole assembly and run custom hoses. Or, as project89 suggested, cap off one of the lines and put a hose on the other.

 

OK thanks. Guess I'll just replace it again. Going to advance auto not auto zone this time.

 

I use a brass ball valve from the plumbing dept, just gotta pop the hood for on and off operation.

 

How would I hook UP the lines with the brass valve?

 

you just put it on the feed line, on it lets coolant into the cabin heater box, off it doesn't.

 

OK cool.
Is the feed line the one from the water pump or the manifold?

 

Coolant goes from the intake into the core through the valve and then back out of the core into the water pump, just like the radiator (Heater core is just another radiator but smaller).

 

OK cool thanks.