heater take off elbow

[Hans Efde]

Today I completed a small mod concerning the heater take off on the head. When I bought the car it had a rubber elbow connected to an aluminium take off. For my new engine I wanted a steel elbow since the sharper corner lets the heater hose run as low as possible (it's close to the expansion bottle height, therefore it tends to collect air) and it looks better.
My engine builder had welded an elbow for me which looked like this:


As you can see there is not much room for the clamp and already at the first start it disconnected. So completely useless for on the road. I bought an elbow which is used for connecting 5/8th hoses to oil coolers, cut the nut end off and had it welded to the plate at a professional welding shop (yes I can weld, but it's no more than frying metal, welding thin walled tubes watertight is a real art which I don't master). Anyway the end result looks promising:


If you want to do this as well, these are the elbows I bought:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 1062241110
You get 2 for the price.

[Stuart]

Did you have one of these before? http://www.dsnclassics.co.uk/acatalog/D ... ts_33.html

[Hans Efde]

I've seen those but they are expensive and also they charge ridiculous money for shipment.
My engine builder used one of these:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Classic-Mini- ... 2a24758af3
and welded a piece of pipe on it.

[Stuart]

I guess at £18 incl VAT the dsn one is pretty reasonable for us in the UK, and you have the option of 1/2" or 5/8" .