Dauntless Coolant Routing Question

Doing what I can on the 68 cj5 with the dauntless in winter. Looking to fix all the coolant leaks. Back of the engine has a pretty crappy setup, on the passenger side. Hose comes from the back of the block and up to the water pump.

Went to look at new to 66 with the dauntless to see what they did since its what I consider to be a "more original" setup.

The 66 does not have this feature.

 

Question is why would that be?

 

This is a heater hose connection.

Some engines have a connection there. I expect if you switched manifolds, the port would follow the manifold. Sorry, I don't have any books that cover the 225s. Likely a factory parts book would make the distinction.

On some engines this water passage connection is used for a CTO (aka ported vacuum switch).

Where does the heater connect on the '66?

 

My 71 2bbl intake had that port in the rear passenger side, it went to the heater if I remember correctly. The port on top of the water pump should also run to the heater. Connecting that rear port to the water pump is just bypassing the heater.

 

Why does the 66 not have the cooling port in the back? It's a small span of years used, hard to understand why there would be running production changes like this.

On my the 68 I deleted the heater.

Can I plug the port in the back then instead of routing to my water pump?

 

You need to have some other bypass to the water pump if you remove the heater hose. If not coolant doesn't circulate well within the block while the thermostat is closed. Sometimes the thermostat simply never senses hot coolant until it is too late or makes drastic swings in temp.