These fittings are in my heater hose lines, to connect them. Looks like the PO did a repair job on the heater hoses and put these fittings in them. Now they leak everywhere because they get dented easily. What would you call these and where do I get them?
You should be able to find those at any auto part store. I used a plastic version of those on a temporary basis in my car. I found them on the Help rack in a local part store. Ask for someone to let you look in the pictorial buyers guide for the heater parts line the store carries, those fittings will be in there somewhere.
You could also use the Prestone brand flush T's for this purpose, it would give you an easy way to flush the system in the future.
Seeing those used makes me think he replaced all of the heater hose except the sections that extend into the passenger compartment. It might be a good idea to drop the heater box in the car and replace everything.
The top piece is just a pipe nipple found at any hardware store. If the auto parts store doesn't have a junction piece, try Home Depot for the pipe nipple.
If you don't use it, disconnect it. It brings heat into the pass. compartment anyways. I would also recomend replacing it. There are always the mornings and nights that you need the defroster.
Radiator fluid passes through the heater even if you are not using it. You will know when it goes bad. I reved the motor up one day and it barfed a half gallon of antifreese on the floor of my mustang. What a mess........
If you never use your heater, just bypass it and loop it where those two hoses come from. My '65 had one of those in it, I'd hook the ends of the hoses from the heater core together with it and loop the other hose back to the water pump during the summer as '65's didn't have heater valves and the water always flowed thru the core.
Those plastic nipples are a temp fix, not a permanent one and no parts store I went to carries the metal ones anymore. I had to put a fitting on my '95 Windstar, the hose had a pipe clamp on one end, but the other end had a metal line attached like a power steering hose. Plus, the hose flared out at the end and was a different size at the clamp. I got one of those plastic fittings and spliced the hose under the intake manifold where you couldn't see it and ran the larger size hose to the fitting. After about a year and a half, the plastic fitting cracked due to the heat cycles.
My suggestion would be if you can find the metal fittings and decide to use them, make sure that they are brass or copper, the steel ones will rust and put crap into your system which can cause more problems further down the line. If you're going to do it spend the extra .50 cents or so and get these parts.
I was going to use a bolt, but the largest bolt NAPA has is 1/2" and its not even close to making a tight fit with the hose. I bet the local hardware store has larger
If you can spare a few extra bucks...why not replace the heater hoses? The hoses are probably showing their age anyways...this way you won't have to use these fittings at all. Much cleaner and no worries about the fittings leaking.