Dash Out

[Ian Hulley]

Other than checking the washer pipes and nozzles, which were fine, and using up a pack of small cable ties, one thing I DID do was grease the wiper linkage joints very well.

Ian

[CovKid]

Aye, be a long time before that happens again.

[Ian Hulley]

Aye, be a long time before that happens again.

Fingers crossed eh

[CJH]

My replacement heater box arrived yesterday - £41 delivered from a German ebay seller. It's very much better than the cracked and broken one I removed. It's a later model (251259113D compared to 251259113A) and there are some minor differences - the heater control cables attach via spring clips rather than screw clips for instance.

It had never been apart, so I worked my way around all the glued tabs, separating them with a small flat blade screwdriver and a hammer, and the case came apart quite easily. I've stripped it and cleaned it, and renewed all the foam on the flaps, and it's ready to go back together.

Some decisions to make though:
- The blower motor I took out of my old one was a rather tired TEMIC branded one, but the one inside this replacement is Bosch branded, and seems more sprightly. It draws just over 12A in free air. I had bought a replacement, Topran branded, which draws just over 10A, but I'm not convinced that replacing a working Bosch unit with a new Topran unit is necessarily an 'upgrade'. I wonder if that difference in current draw perhaps indicates that the Bosch is starting to stiffen up, or were they perhaps always like that and the Bosch is perhaps more powerful. I'll do a side-by-side test I think.
- The heater matrix in the my old unit shows signs of corrosion on the weather-facing side, but I know it doesn't leak. The one in the replacement looks newer, but the weather-facing side was packed full of dust, dead flies, small leaves etc, and it was wet. So I need to satisfy myself that that's not because of a leak before deciding which one to put back in. I'd have preferred to put a new one in, but they're too expensive to replace on a whim when I've probably got two good ones here already.
- I don't have the bits on hand to do the full variable speed fan controller mod, but I'm tempted to move the resistor coil outside the heater box to a more convenient location for doing that mod in the future, maybe without even having to remove the dash. I recall people moving the resistor coil, but I can't remember the details. Does it get hot and therefore have to sit in the airflow, or can I just pick a convenient mounting point under the dash somewhere?

[CJH]

The case is all back together, but putting the van back together will have to wait for this afternoon. It's clipped together with the spring clips off the old one. New draft excluder around the heater matrix and the motor, and new foam on all the flaps. And on the bench it all works nicely.

For the record, the new Topran blower motor not only draws less current than the old Bosch (~10A versus ~12A), but it also seems to blow a little bit harder too. So the new one's gone in.

I went with my old heater matrix, as I know it doesn't leak and it all seems to be in good order apart from superficial corrosion on the outside. I gave the fins a blow out with my air gun.

And I left the resistors inside the case. I'll shelve the fan controller mod for now. They do get warm, but they're not in the cold air flow inside the case, so moving them to a new location wouldn't have been difficult. Now I know that the case will come apart again easily it won't be too bad a job in the future if necessary.

[scottbott]

I seem to remember a mod for the resistor being changed with a Jeep one on the samba,might be worth having a look for it

[CJH]

A word to the wise. If you ever replace your heater box with one from a LHD vehicle, say by buying one from a German ebay seller, note that the wiring harness from the resistor/motor won't be long enough to reach a RHD heater control panel. You may find that annoying, particularly if you've spent an evening cleaning up all the connectors and adapting the terminals to suit a Topran motor. And doubly so if you don't notice until the heater box is reassembled and reinstalled in the van.

On the other hand, every setback is an opportunity as they say, and you may, like I did, take the opportunity to extend the wiring by moving the resistor outside the case. Mine is now located on top of the heater box, just below the speaker grille, so should I ever decide to do Covkid's/Ghost's variable controller mod it won't be a dash-out job.

Another word to the wise. If you should ever replace your old style heater box with a newer style one, you may not notice at first that the air supply for the vents at the ends of the dashboard has moved, to the other side of the heater matrix. You may be pleased initially when you realise that this means those vents can now be fed with warm air, however note that the plastic ducting isn't long enough for the new location. Almost, but not quite. You may find that annoying.

[scottbott]

I wonder how you found that out?

[CJH]

I wonder how you found that out?

Yeah, this was supposed to be a quicker job than everyone makes out. "Give yourself a full day", Covkid says. "Bah", I thought, "can't be that bad". Two Sundays later and a few evenings with the new heater box, and I'm finally done. Actually though, it ISN'T that bad, provided you don't have to replace your heater box.

[CJH]

I'm struggling to source the right heater ducting for the vents at the ends of the dash. On my old heater box, where the vents were fed by cold air, I had a length of flexible ducting each side (part number 5 in the figure below), with an S-bend on the driver's side to get behind the brake servo (part 6 below - imagine that figure reversed for RHD).

On the new heater box it would seem that I need parts 6B and 6C to connect to the (heated) outlets, and then the same flexible ducting could be reused. However, in the figure below parts 6B and 6C seem to be designed to connect to angled outlets, whereas on my (new) heater box these outlets are square (well, they're oval really, but you know what I mean).

So it's a long shot, but can anyone confirm how these vent ducts connect to the heater box? I'm tempted just to get some general purpose 60mm flexible ducting instead of trying to source 6B and 6C.

[keytouch]

Wasn't silverbullet looking for the same thing not long back?
https://club8090.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=147924" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[CJH]

Wasn't silverbullet looking for the same thing not long back?
https://club8090.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=147924" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

So he was. Thank you, some good leads there.