Spitfire 1500 Heater Motor Upgrade?

[JonLow]

Anybody out there upgraded their Spitfire HEATER MOTOR? I am wishing to put in another more powerful blower motor, as the Spitfire ones do take a bit of time to clear the windscreen, or heat the cockpit with a 40+ year old fan and rad assembly. I have read that a Nissan Micra unit could be used. But I messaged a Ebay seller offering a used Micra blower and the fan is larger diameter and a bit too deep. But maybe the fan could be swapped over. Anybody had any experience of revamping their heater unit? Thanks.

[Ian Faulds]

do a search on here its been done on a gt6 pics everything , ive bought one myself to upgrade mine, ill have a look see if I can find the pics.

[Ian Faulds]

found these might help

blue/white positive blue /red negative

Edited March 27, 2019 by Ian Faulds
word addition

[Paul H]

This is the link for the Nissan Micra heater blower upgrade 

 Paul

[JonLow]

Thanks for the comments so far, but not sure we are talking about the same sort of heater unit. Is that a Herald/Vitesse unit shown?

This is a Spitfire unit that I am trying to improve on a bit:

This shows the sort of crudded up/deteriorating rad vanes within. So thought a faster blower might recover some of the heating ability of the original unit.

 

[NonMember]

Yes, the one shown in Ian's post, and described in Paul's link, is a Herald / Vitesse unit. It's very different from the Spitfire one and much deeper.

[johny]

In either case it looks to me as if one of the critical factors for any replacement fan is that ends up running as close as possible to the air intake hole to ensure a good 'seal' and minimise wasted air circulation inside the heater box. This of course depends on any replacement fan having the same depth as the original and Im not sure how or if this was achieved on that original Herald/Vitesse modification.....

[Sparky_Spit]

I upgraded my Mk3 Spitfire fan using the motor from a Smart Two/Four, which I suspect is the same as a normal Smart Car one.  The fan that comes with it is far too big but you can use your existing fan by re-drilling the centre hole to fit the new motor's spindle (1/4" I think, but measure it to be sure).  You need to make 3 spacer tubes to attach the motor to the heater case with bolts to get the right spacing for the spindle length. This sounds tricky but is obvious once you have the parts in your hand. There's plenty of space behind the dash for it to fit.

The new motor is much more powerful than the original Smiths one and if you add a 12v speed controller (very cheap from China via ebay) you get an infinitely variable output.  It is very effective and quickly warms up the interior and screen in winter.