Heater boxes and clear air tubes.

I take the clear air tubes off and plug the shroud outlets. With
Gerber's baby food jar lids.
My local mechanic sez it just fries the valve cover gaskets with heat
from the heater boxes.
Wouldn't it be better to use that air to cool the cylinders that the
heater boxes? Or should I just go to "J" tubes?
It's a 1776 in a Ghia.
--
Money! What a concept.

On Jul 2, 9:46*am, VFW > wrote:
> I take the clear air tubes off and plug the shroud outlets. *With
> Gerber's baby food jar lids.
> My local mechanic sez it just fries the valve cover gaskets with heat
> from the heater boxes.
> Wouldn't it be better to use that air to cool the cylinders that the
> heater boxes? Or should I just go to "J" tubes?
> It's a 1776 in a Ghia.

J-tubes don't seal well if you are using a header and the stock
'asbestos donut' gaskets, so be forewarned that going down that route
should include a trip the muffler shop so have flanges welded to the
header and j-tubes so that you can bolt them together rather than
relying on the lousy clamp for the stock muffler. And the paint that
comes on the J-tubes from the factory is for crap...at least that was
how my couple sets turned out. It burned off within a few minutes for
me. So I would suggest you repaint with something better before you
install.

But getting back to your first issue..I ran my '74 like that for a
while and saw no major issues with the valve cover gaskets. They
seemed to hold up okay for me. The bigger problem, which I -read-
about and have not experienced myself, is that the heater boxes can
overheat internally and the aluminum casting around the tube that
radiates the heat into the air being pushed through can fail if you
remove the air supply tubes. If you look at the way the heater boxes
are designed, when closed there is an outlet at the top so that some
air is still allowed to go through.

If you have absolutely no use for heat at all, I would remove the
heater boxes and get the J-tubes, and have them modified for a flange.
And make sure you cover up the openings in the rear tin. When I did
that a while back I got a few scrap pieces of ductwork sheet metal
from the hardware store and cut them into circles, used a small bolt
and nut to sandwich two pieces on the openings for the heater tubes
and then hit the whole deal with some flat black spraypaint.

Good luck with it.

Chris

In article
>,
" > wrote:

> On Jul 2, 9:46*am, VFW > wrote:
> > I take the clear air tubes off and plug the shroud outlets. *With
> > Gerber's baby food jar lids.
> > My local mechanic sez it just fries the valve cover gaskets with heat
> > from the heater boxes.
> > Wouldn't it be better to use that air to cool the cylinders that the
> > heater boxes? Or should I just go to "J" tubes?
> > It's a 1776 in a Ghia.
>
> J-tubes don't seal well if you are using a header and the stock
> 'asbestos donut' gaskets, so be forewarned that going down that route
> should include a trip the muffler shop so have flanges welded to the
> header and j-tubes so that you can bolt them together rather than
> relying on the lousy clamp for the stock muffler. And the paint that
> comes on the J-tubes from the factory is for crap...at least that was
> how my couple sets turned out. It burned off within a few minutes for
> me. So I would suggest you repaint with something better before you
> install.
>
> But getting back to your first issue..I ran my '74 like that for a
> while and saw no major issues with the valve cover gaskets. They
> seemed to hold up okay for me. The bigger problem, which I -read-
> about and have not experienced myself, is that the heater boxes can
> overheat internally and the aluminum casting around the tube that
> radiates the heat into the air being pushed through can fail if you
> remove the air supply tubes. If you look at the way the heater boxes
> are designed, when closed there is an outlet at the top so that some
> air is still allowed to go through.
>
> If you have absolutely no use for heat at all, I would remove the
> heater boxes and get the J-tubes, and have them modified for a flange.
> And make sure you cover up the openings in the rear tin. When I did
> that a while back I got a few scrap pieces of ductwork sheet metal
> from the hardware store and cut them into circles, used a small bolt
> and nut to sandwich two pieces on the openings for the heater tubes
> and then hit the whole deal with some flat black spraypaint.
>
> Good luck with it.
>
> Chris

thanks for the suggestions.
And they are making those "donuts" out of stainless wire . and the old
flex. tube going from the heater boxes used to have asbestos in them.
Watch out!
--
Money! What a concept.