89 block mounted cooling pipe capped off?

[jmill89]

Hello,

My friend is looking into purchasing a 89 turbo, but the heater doesn't work. First off the vsv appears to be functioning correctly, but the current owner says there is still no flow through the heater core. If you take off the return hose, water shoots out from the firewall, so I don't think it is clogged. I know the block mounted cooling pipe is supposed to be capped off on the passenger side (I'm assuming this is because they use the same pipe for both RHD and LHD), but if you remove the heater core return hose from the driver side end of the pipe, there is a metal cap on the end of the pipe. This doesn't make any sense at all, unless someone installed a jdm engine in this car and used the RHD pipe (if RHD pipes come capped off with a metal cap?). So I guess my question is do import 7mgte come with a different block mounted cooling pipe? Or am I missing something?

Someone was selling some parts and and on the 9th image down, left side, is a picture of the coolant pipe in question (flip it 180 deg horizontally, and it will be positioned as if you were standing in front of the car)
http://www.vadriven.com/forums/showthread.php?t=157548
This one looks like it has a metal cap on the end at the front of the engine, this looks similiar to the cap at the back that's in the way for the heater core return (on the image this would be the end where the small pipe sticks out for the egr or something)

Thanks
Jason

[Jeeves]

That's actually something you usually want to swap if you use a JDM engine. On the JDM blocks, that bastard pipe that goes around the block, is capped off. To use it here, you have to hacksaw that cap off, and then put the hose between the firewall and that connection.

I know someone else who's done this, so I can't believe it's too uncommon, just a blooper.

[jmill89]

Thanks

I guess its safe to assume this isnt the original engine, only 104,000 miles on the car though.

It also means that there's been no circulation through the heater core since they replaced the engine, do you think this could have caused any damage?

Jason

[Jeeves]

Originally Posted by jmill89

Thanks

I guess its safe to assume this isnt the original engine, only 104,000 miles on the car though.

It also means that there's been no circulation through the heater core since they replaced the engine, do you think this could have caused any damage?

Jason

In theory it could, but it's doubtful. With flow through one side, you'd see the failure somewhere else. Losing coolant, wet passenger side, etc.