Help me turn my heater back on!

[excalibur]

I am in the process of trying to get heat in the car, and it looks as if there are 2 valves in the water system in line to the heater core. One is the one controlled by the dash lever, and it seems to work fine, and the other is the one in the engine compartment on the firewall side of the engine.

The one on the engine appears to be a summer valve to bypass sending coolant into the heater core, and appears to be very sticky. Do you know what position I need to turn it to to get the coolant flowing? I have been able to rotate it from the position where the handle points towards the engine to where the handle points up, but no farther (IE 45 degrees) and this was done gently with a pair of channel locks... Shouldn't it be able to rotate 90 degrees to turn on the water flow? (I am guessing it may need to be replaced with a new valve)

[itsa68]

The position to get some heat is as shown in this pic.
http://www.311s.org/phpBB2/album_pic.php?pic_id=66

I had to gently work the valve back and forth several times using a 10" cresent wrench to finally get the full 90 degree movement.
A little lube on the spring assembly on the bottom also helped the cause.

After the valve was free and in the heater position, a small amount of weeping occurred at topside when the engine was at temp.
I made sure that I backed up the bottom side of the valve body with a heavy hammer and lightly tapped the top valve stem with a ball peen hammer to reseat the taper of the stem to the body.

No leaks in either handle position from then on.

Ray B.