replacing/fixing heater hose and soup can vacuum lines

[johnunit]

Both the vacuum lines going to the heater hose (ATC car) and the soup can are broken, and they have those weird fitting that reduce the size to the thing plastic tubing. In the case of the other end of the soup can line and both ends of the heater hose lines, the ends are permanently attatched to where they draw vacuum.


In short: How the hell do I replace them? They don't seem to be the same outside diamter from one end to the other, so I don't think I can even just slip oversized tubing over. How can I fix this without making it look like too much of an epic butchering job?

[Glen]

Both ends should come off. I think it is 5/16 air line, just get new line and replace it. If they don't , cut the line take it to the parts store and find the right size to fit over it. A little glue and you are fixed. I would also replace the can with a vac. box from a 90+ car.

[johnunit]

There is nothing to "come off" on the parts I'm talking about. They go into rubber "blocks" that then sit in either a mounting point on the heater hose, or a hole in the firewall, and the blocks have other similarly constructed tubes coming out of it. I'll try and get a picture, this may be an oddball thing for the 351s.

[gadget73]

The tubes that pass through the firewall connect up behind the climate control head unit somewhere. When I caught my car on fire, I melted those off. I ended up finding the melted off end inside the car, pushing a piece of oversized rubber hose over it, and running that out through the grommet after drilling it for the larger size rubber tube. It probably doesn't look great, but its mostly hidden back there and it doesn't look like a total butcher job.

[johnunit]

Allright. That sounds like a good bit of work, but it'd be a permanent fix. How much did you have to disassemble the dash to do that? Are these the lines that go all the way to right behind the face of the dashboard?



I'm not sure I wanna do that, partly because the lines under the dash all seem fairly solid, but at least I have a plan of action if nothing else can be figured out.

[gadget73]

if you pull the climate control out, the hole in the firewall is straight back, though I think the defrost duct is in the way of a really clear shot. if you have a helper to feed you hose, its not too bad. I think they go either straight to the climate control, or theres a tee right behind it. If its got ATC, the tee is roughly halfway between the firewall and the climate control. One side of the tee goes to the climate control, the other goes back outside to the thermal blower switch thing thats always leaking. If you have ATC, you can simply get rid of the vacuum lines to that and have one single line feeding into the dash. The other lines just need to be sealed off.

[johnunit]

Thanks. that sounds relatively painless.

where is the thermal blower switch in the engine compartment?