Heater box delete

[Mike Self]

4 hours ago, ray_ said:

I believe MikeS once posted that blowers from hair dryers could be fitted in the defrost ducts. That may be a cheap solution to one issue....

 

Many hand-held hair dryers have little high speed blowers with tiny fans--and they're 12 volt DC!  Find a used one at Goodwill and dismantle it for the motor/fan assembly and the venturi that fits around it.  You should be able to find one that'll fit inside your existing defroster hose, or you can splice it into the hose.  Connect the motor's wires to your existing heater blower switch and you're in business.

 

You'll probably want two, one for each defroster duct.

 

mike

[Simeon]

16 hours ago, Glengoolie Blue said:

Thanks everyone for the replies. Losing the defrost is probably the thing that worries me most. I would happily rebuild the heater box, but it really is a shambles. 

 

Just blank off the hole but put a couple of 2" hose flanges in the blanking plate. Run ducts from the plate up to the defrost vents. Not perfect but at least some airflow across the screen. 

[Glengoolie Blue]

On 2/21/2017 at 9:37 PM, mike said:

Many hand-held hair dryers have little high speed blowers with tiny fans--and they're 12 volt DC!  Find a used one at Goodwill and dismantle it for the motor/fan assembly and the venturi that fits around it.  You should be able to find one that'll fit inside your existing defroster hose, or you can splice it into the hose.  Connect the motor's wires to your existing heater blower switch and you're in business.

 

You'll probably want two, one for each defroster duct.

 

mike

 

On 2/22/2017 at 8:45 AM, Simeon said:

 

Just blank off the hole but put a couple of 2" hose flanges in the blanking plate. Run ducts from the plate up to the defrost vents. Not perfect but at least some airflow across the screen. 

 

Fantastic Ideas both, I'm going to try the hairdryer idea as soon as i get the car back from the upholstery shop. If I can't make it work, I'll go with the vent holes. Thanks much!

[Healey3000]

A negative to those little blowers is noise.  A single large, lower RPM fan or centrifugal blower is typically much quieter.  Although, for your application I don't think you are too concerned with noise :-)

[Beaner7102]

On 2/17/2017 at 9:24 AM, OriginalOwner said:

Here's my experience with blocking off the coolant flow loop through the heater.

 

A few years back the heater coil began to leak.  So I plugged the outlet from the back of the cylinder head (which is the inlet to the heater), and I plugged the hose that returns coolant back to the water pump (the heater outlet side).  The car began running HOT !!

 

So I redneck'ed some hoses to connect the cylinder head outlet to that return hose, thus "restoring" coolant flow from the back of the cylinder head into the water pump.  The car ran normal temp.

 

Cheers,

 

Carl

 

+1

If you do delete the box, DONT block off the water flow. Just run a length of rubber heater hose from the block to the waterpump. Sorted.

Beaner7102