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Thank all of you for your replies to my question.

Thank you marcapra for your reply . sbc= Small block Chevy.

Thank you. Would putting it in one of the heater hoses still put coolant pressure on the heater core? I was thinking it would be possibly better if it didn't? Tried reading about it, but got conflicting ideas. I can get the right size valve to fit either hose.

I have a 1948 DeSoto and the heater core puts a lot of heat into the car. The motor has been replaced with a sbc motor. I was wondering how to shut off the coolant from going to the core in the summer. There is a heater hose going to the water pump and another going to the front of the intake manifold. Would putting a shut off ball valve in one of the lines be correct? Which of the two lines would be the correct one? I would like to be able to get heat in the cooler weather, so I don't want to just disconnect the heater core permanently. Thanks in advance for any help.

Thanks to all who responded with good ideas and helpful advice!

Thank you for your reply.The engine doesn't run hot any more, just seems to have low power now. Maybe you are right about the distributor, the points and condenser are new, but I don't know if the mechanical advance is working correctly or not.The distributor itself might be worn as you say.

Thank you for your reply and the link. The article on overheating was good. The other things to check sound like good ideas.

Yes, I think he mentioned that, told me to get a carb kit also. There are a few things he said he had to do yet.Thank you for your reply.

The mechanic that is an actual mechanic,told me that the car needs new plugs and by looking at the plugs he felt colder plugs would be better. So since he knows a lot more than I do, I thought I would try and find him some colder plugs. If I can't find any, I will just get new Autolite 295 spark plugs, which are the ones recommended and the ones that were in the car. He has the car running much better than when I brought it in to him, but says he still has some work to do to get it better yet. It is hard to get anyone that can work on the older cars. I had an expensive tuneup done right before this and they changed the points and cap, but left two bad spark plug wires and the motor would ping and miss badly, the timing was way off among other things.

Thank you for your reply, The whole deal with the spark plug numbering is confusing, About 20 years ago the Pontiac would overheat while sitting waiting for a train etc. Somebody said colder plugs would help that, so I took one out and went to the parts store and told them at that I needed colder spark plugs, I bought what they told me and put them in, but they must have been slightly longer as something like a valve hit some of them and closed down the gap on them. So since then I have had the Autolite 295 plugs in the car.

Thank you for your reply.Another mechanic worked on it and charged for a tune up, but it pinged and was missing if you stepped on it at all. The last fellow got it to run much better and seems to be very knowledgeable about the older motors, He looked at the plugs and said they hadn't been changed during the tune up and he thought I should get a heat range colder or so. I work on the car sometimes, but am, not a good mechanic. I think the mechanic has a few things he wants to check out further, he also said for me to get a carb rebuild kit,which I have ordered.

Thank you for our reply, I will check into that. Thank you, I wasn't aware of that.

Thank you for your reply. Just not running that well, sort of sluggish, I had a mechanic look at it ,he improved it quite a bit and told me from the look of the plugs, I should get a range or two colder plugs.One person at Autolite said 303 was a colder replacement,but when I went to order some, somebody else said 303 was a hotter plug than 295, I tried to research the specs of the two plugs, but different sites were varied, even some listing the reach as being different. . So yes you are right, I can't make any sense of it. I spent a long time trying to figure it out, but got nowhere.

Had some trouble with my 1950 Pontiac 268 8 cylinder, not running that well.Among other things, I was told to get a set of spark plugs that were 1 or 2 ranges colder. The plugs that are in it now are Autolite 295 plugs. I called some auto parts stores, but didn't get anywhere with trying to find colder plugs. I tried looking it up on the search engine, but just got more confused, as some of the specs were different for the same brand and plug numbers on different sites. Any advice would be appreciated.Thank you in advance

Thank you!