Re: Questions: Heater Control Valve, Blower Motor, 1953 Cavalier (also progress update)

Posted by HH56 On 2021/5/23 18:49:33

If your blower wheel is anywhere close to being as tight on the shaft as my AC wheel was you will have a project to get it off. You cannot use anything to pry or pull behind the wheel because the sheet metal is too flimsy and the wheel will bend. Maybe your starter place will have a proper puller but if not here is what I did.

I wound up buying a split collar to fit the hub diameter.https://www.mcmaster.com/split-shaft-collars/ I got as close to the hub diameter as I could and still have the clamp be able to show a small gap when it was tightly clamped together. Used a small 3 jaw gear puller under the collar but even then found the hub so tight the collar would slide off. Finally wound up drilling and tapping a hole in the middle of each of the collar halves and threaded in a pointed end set screw which would bottom into two slight depressions I drilled into the hub. That did the trick and a wheel puller could then pull it from the shaft via the hub side.

The heater valve does need some kind of capillary tube as that is what senses temp and provides the pressure to work the mechanism. First valves had a long tube with a sensing bulb on the end but for 1951 on the valves had the tube coiled up in about a 1" wide and long coil and mounted to the side of the housing where it would be in airflow provided by a small opening in the side of the plenum box.