Heater controls

[Adrian Saunders]

Ayup folks. I’m rebuilding the dashboard of my ‘72 GT6 and I’m at the heater controls. They’re due a deep-clean (topical) with some brake cleaner and a light lube. What lube have you used at the slides and pivots? 
PS: Who knew that the screen demist ducts and the wiper tube battle for the same space? 

[Adrian Saunders]

Can anyone get me some under/behind the dash shots of the heater pipe work? Most important are the Y pieces: where abouts are they and what routes to and from them. Thank you. 

[dougbgt6]

Adrian,

You probably know this diagram, it's from Canley Classics, I didn't sus straight away that it's looking at an angle from the engine bay.  I'm not sure a photo will tell you much it's SO cramped in there. I only learned recently that the dash air vents blow cold only, well supposed to, everything in there gets hot!

Doug

[Adrian Saunders]

12 hours ago, dougbgt6 said:

Adrian,

You probably know this diagram, it's from Canley Classics, I didn't sus straight away that it's looking at an angle from the engine bay.  I'm not sure a photo will tell you much it's SO cramped in there. I only learned recently that the dash air vents blow cold only, well supposed to, everything in there gets hot!

Doug

That’s a fair point Doug. It would probably need to be hi-def video to capture all the subtleties that one tends to miss with single shots. I’ll use this plus me noggin, redo it four times and relax. 

[Adrian Saunders]

Don’t you just love the way some parts were made. The detent for the fan motor speed is a steel ball which is retained in a leaf spring by a hole, the ball then just drops into a corresponding hole in the slide as the slide is.........slid. Just imagine how many plastic mouldings, silicone filled dampers and heat inserts required to accomplish the same today. 

[Colin Lindsay]

9 hours ago, Adrian Saunders said:

Don’t you just love the way some parts were made. The detent for the fan motor speed is a steel ball which is retained in a leaf spring by a hole, the ball then just drops into a corresponding hole in the slide as the slide is.........slid. Just imagine how many plastic mouldings, silicone filled dampers and heat inserts required to accomplish the same today. 

Moderns would have an electric motor and a sensor, which would link to a controller, so that when the switch is moved it sends a signal to yet another sensor, which powers a motor at the fan end to move yet another lever there and so operate the fan.

[ChrisJB]

Hi,

Some photos are attached of my heater pipes before I took it all apart for a respray.  Note that the car had had a previous restoration in the 1990s so they may not be in the original positions.  As Doug states, they are of limited usefulness due to the lack of space and also as the dash is partially dismantled.  There are significant space issues when putting it back together, notably attaching the demister pipes due to the wiper rack and then when you come to put the dash cubby boxes back in, you find the heater pipes are occupying the same space.  It might be worth doing a trial instal of the cubby boxes before fixing all the pipes. I had the drivers side heater pipe "Y" junction in the horizontal plane as in the photos and it was a real fight to get the RH cubby box in.  It might help if the "Y" junction is in a more vertical position as shown in the parts diagram if this is possible.

Chris

[Adrian Saunders]

11 hours ago, Colin Lindsay said:

Moderns would have an electric motor and a sensor, which would link to a controller, so that when the switch is moved it sends a signal to yet another sensor, which powers a motor at the fan end to move yet another lever there and so operate the fan.

But, the fan that you mentioned is to cool the pcb which controls the actual fan. The pcb is required because the fan can run at any one of its predetermined 783 speeds or a combination of, depending upon the occupants. There is also a speed up / slow down mode just in case you can’t make up your mind. Isn’t there. I’m not sure now. And there’s the Boris mode where you can have the fan on, but you can’t. If you do turn it on you must turn it off immediately, after a period of time. The period is exactly three minutes, or two minutes to be precise. If your name’s Dominic, you can leave it on for the whole journey, because you couldn’t see that you’d left it on. 

[chrishawley]

GT6 Heater Ducts:

I had to puzzle my ducts out from scratch as the car came to me as box of bits. So I made some notes at the time. As follows:

1) Affix all four eyeball vents in position; two in the dash and two mounted toward the inner ends of the parcel shelves. That give the start and end locations of the ducting (the start being the lower outlets on the heater box).

2) Left hand side is fairly easy. Affix (original bracket or cable tie) Y-piece to lower left hand corner of heater box with ‘Y’ pointing skyward. Connect heater box outlet to Y-piece with a ‘U’ of ducting. With a fairly long piece of ducting, connect one arm of the ‘Y’ to the parcel shelf vent in a broad inverted ‘U’. Connect other arm of Y to dash vent in a broad curve. Plenty of space so exact lay of the ducting not critical.

3) RH is bamboozling until I worked out where the Y-piece goes. It sits, very snuggly, between the outer side of the steering column and the inner face of the glove box with the ‘Y’ pointing along the line of the steering column. No brackets, just a snug fit. Thus: a) remove glove box/pacel shelf, b) affix a long length of duct to stem of Y-piece c) feed duct over the lower steering column and affix to heater box d) trial fit glove box and adjust position of Y-piece so it sits with snugness in the curve of the inner face of the glove box and against the steering column. Remove glove box.

4) The upper arm of the Y connects to the dash vent with a long arc of duct which will sit loosely above the glove box when the latter is refitted.

5) Now the hard bit. A really long bit of ducting now goes from the lower arm of the Y-piece back over the steering column (under might be possible as well) and then bends in a really tight ‘C’ to connect with the eyeball. The is hard, and involves a lot of squidging, because the column brackets, speedo/tacho/odo cables and wiring are all in the way. Best done with speedo and tacho removed. Trial fit glove box and instruments and adjust position of duct as needed.

Hope that helps.

IMHO best contact cleaner is KONTAKT60. It's expensive but is acidic so will dissolve oxides off the surface or terminals rather than just superficially cleaning

 

Cheers

C

[Peter Truman]

On my Vitesse which is no way near as congested as your set up I tidied up the windscreen de-mister corrugated pipe at the heater end where it has to turn relatively tightly at right angles by using small uPVC pressure pipe 90 bends adjusted to fit tightly by enlarging the inner socket end with a Dremmel small drum sander tool.

This mod made things tidier and easier to get behind the dash.

[Adrian Saunders]

13 hours ago, ChrisJB said:

Hi,

Some photos are attached of my heater pipes before I took it all apart for a respray.  Note that the car had had a previous restoration in the 1990s so they may not be in the original positions.  As Doug states, they are of limited usefulness due to the lack of space and also as the dash is partially dismantled.  There are significant space issues when putting it back together, notably attaching the demister pipes due to the wiper rack and then when you come to put the dash cubby boxes back in, you find the heater pipes are occupying the same space.  It might be worth doing a trial instal of the cubby boxes before fixing all the pipes. I had the drivers side heater pipe "Y" junction in the horizontal plane as in the photos and it was a real fight to get the RH cubby box in.  It might help if the "Y" junction is in a more vertical position as shown in the parts diagram if this is possible.

Chris

Thanks Chris. I notice the duct over the steering column. This ties in with a section on mine that’s completely worn through! 

[ChrisJB]

That is the duct to the right hand lower dash eyeball vent.  Between it and the "Y" connector is the duct for the demister vent.  Note that I think that the orientation of the "Y" connector is incorrect- see Chris Hawley's post.  From bitter experience I recommend that you follow his recommendation of trial fitting the glove box while adjusting teh position of teh ducts and teh "Y" connector!