Cool. :)

The original was all-metal (! ;) and froze up one year after it was out of warranty.
I took it out, cleaned it up, got it working and it froze up again in a month or so.

$40 for a new one in early '77 was too stinkin' much so did like you, just added a gate valve in line, later found that B&K ball valve and it looked really "big inside" so went with it (was kinda tired of twisting the handle on the gate valve anyway;).

The idea won't work for for everybody but it works great fro me.

I hardly use the heater anyway. If it's cold, i wear warm clothes in and out of the pickup (left over from when i worked) and only on long stretches of driving do I use the heater. But I ain't in Michigan tho. ;)

I'm figuring on drilling(?) tapper reaming and tapping 1/2" pipe threads into the intake manifold someday and replacing the 3/8" to 1/2" adapter that's under there with a short 1/2" brass nipple.

Alvin in AZ
ps- everyone else got a spell-checker-thing going on?
...it popped up new when i got my new computer going :)
Is it the website or my 'puter? (Ubuntu 6.10)
It's cool, it's helping me straighten out my spelling errors that for years i thought I had right! ;)
pps- Hmmm... it ain't my 'puter? ...since it don't like ubuntu's spelling :/