Heater control valve

[jrw429]

I just bought a B7A-18495-A heater control valve from Dennis Carpenter. Installed it and it worked fine for about a half an hour. Sadly, that was enough to make me think it was fine. Now I'm on a 2,200 mile road trip through the midwest without heat, and it is unpleasant. There is a huge vacuum leak from the control valve. Should it be this way? I'm thinking not, but I really don't know. I've tried to seal it up with duct tape, but it hasn't worked.

Any tricks for getting heat? I'd be really happy to have it full blast all the time. I've already removed the control mechanism which varied the vacuum, now running full vacuum to the new heater control valve. If I can get heat, I can moderate temperature with hi/lo fan and opening windows.

Less than half way through the driving, hoping someone can help me keep warm!!!

[shopratwoody]

Man that sucks. I'd take the valve out and run direct hot water to it. Hope you got
that fixed.

[RICH MUISE]

I wished I had remembered what Ron told you about running it direct while you were still on the road....sorry about that...my memory is fading in my older years.
That's how mine was set up when I took it apart years ago...I honestly didn't know enough about the '57's at the time to realize it was "suppose" to have a valve. Whoever converted mine just had a shut off valve so you didn't have the hot water running thru in the summer.
Rich