Heater Hose - Aluminum Parts Upgrade

[rdezs]

My wife wants to keep the rear heat and AC.... If it was up to me, I would do away with the T fittings at the firewall with just a straight connector, and not have the rear heat. To me, looking at those hoses in such a bad spot, I see a disaster in waiting if the right rear tire throws up the right size rock. I'd rather just not have the rear heat.... But she wants to keep it in case we ever get grandkids, LOL. (Which starts out with chewing gum stuck to the carpet and stepped on, followed by ketchup packets that gets stepped on as they get older, french fries under the seat....oh my. )

 

[Joseph Garcia]

With kids, you never know what you might find tucked between the seats or under the seats, or on the carpets or anywhere else they may have been messing around with.

BUT...... Happy Wife == Happy Life!

 

[scuzz215]

My wife wants to keep the rear heat and AC.... If it was up to me, I would do away with the T fittings at the firewall with just a straight connector, and not have the rear heat. To me, looking at those hoses in such a bad spot, I see a disaster in waiting if the right rear tire throws up the right size rock. I'd rather just not have the rear heat.... But she wants to keep it in case we ever get grandkids, LOL. (Which starts out with chewing gum stuck to the carpet and stepped on, followed by ketchup packets that gets stepped on as they get older, french fries under the seat....oh my. )

I just read through this whole post because my "T" fittings are leaking and fortunately I found all the info I needed right here. In regards to your comment about deleting the rear heater core, I was thinking about something similar because I live in Florida and it's very rare for me to use the heater, especially in the rear because I never have passengers back there.

I think if we put both of our brain cells together we can come up with something. Could we possibly install a shutoff valve between the rear lines and the "T" fittings? Or make some kind of loop with a short piece of hose and a quick connect fitting on each end? Similar to a regular heater core bypass, but just bypassing the rear heater core. Or leave the "T" fittings connected to the rear lines and run a straight connection from the water pump to the front heater core, basically what the pickup trucks or vehicles without rear hvac have? Any reason we couldn't bypass both heater cores, leaving the "T" fittings connected (in case we do end up needing them at some point? and just have the two hoses connected together somehow? My apologies for the long rant and excessive questions/ ideas, it's past my bedtime and I'm basically thinking out loud here lol. I think I turned my heater on twice this year, but I would have been fine without it. Plus, I really like the idea of keeping the extra heat out of the dash in the summer while increasing the performance of the a/c by preventing heat soak from the heater core.

Again, I'm sorry for making things more complicated and I hope some of what I said makes sense. I also want to thank everyone else in this thread for providing great information and tips for fixing this problem. This was exactly what I was hoping to find!

 

[rdezs]

You can easily run without the rear heater core by just deleting the plastic or aluminum T fittings at the firewall. Any of the straight fittings off the pickups, or specifically the 2003 Hummer H2 are a direct fit.

Those two aluminum pipes that run down the firewall to the rear heater core.... If you wanted to keep the system intact for later use, I would install two shut off valves with a half inch compression fitting on each end. (The aluminum pipe is 1/2 inch outside diameter)

If you don't want the hot coolant in the dash, it's best to loop the two heater hose connections. You can simply plug them, but I think you're better off retaining the circulation to prevent any cooling system issues or hot spots in the engine.