Heater

[Alex Gurr]

Well, I picked the car up on Saturday and have been laughing my head off ever since. Mainly at the fuel consumption , but also at the ridiculous amount of low down lazy grunt and fabulous sound track

The only slight down side is that I can't for the life of me fathom the heater controls. Now, I have a diagram that explains it all to me, but the car insists on blasting nothing but hot air into the cabin. There is a choice of warm, or volcanic, which meant that we actually had the windows open the whole way back, despite being only 5 degrees or so outside.

Do any of you have any ideas on what the problem may be, with either me or the car

[burriana]

That's your problem, you shouldn't have had the windows down ... you should've had the roof off!


Seriously, I wish my heater was "volcanic", mostly they are rubbish, not ideal for winter roofless driving.

[dnb]

The water valve is in the passenger footwell on the left hand side. There is a white dot on it that denotes "fully closed". When you set the heater to cold, make sure the tag on the valve points to the white dot. If this isn't the case, then you will need to get the heater adjusted. This involves taking the dash out and playing with adjustment pots in the heater controller.

Note that on mine, the white dot was actually in the wrong place, which you can't see until you take the valve out for inspection!

I have a heater that does hot and coolish, so it is possible to get it better!

[griffit]

burriana said:

That's your problem, you shouldn't have had the windows down ... you should've had the roof off!


Seriously, I wish my heater was "volcanic", mostly they are rubbish, not ideal for winter roofless driving.

Couldn't agree more! I'd drive with the roof off 100% of the time when the car is out if it weren't for the irritating noise coming from the passenger seat (something about being cold as I recall)... My heater doesn't do volcanic, or even hot, more like "takes the chill off the air" - and that's with the roof on!

This valve sounds interesting - perhaps I can get my heater to do something more than it does at present, it might even make that noise stop?! If I find out where the chilly outside air is coming into the drivers footwell from too I'll be onto a real winner. (It's not coming in the cold air vent btw, seems like the top of the pedal box? Next weekends job possibly?

[DarkMatter]

Alex Gurr said:

... The only slight down side is that I can't for the life of me fathom the heater controls. Now, I have a diagram that explains it all to me, but the car insists on blasting nothing but hot air into the cabin. There is a choice of warm, or volcanic, which meant that we actually had the windows open the whole way back, despite being only 5 degrees or so outside.

Do any of you have any ideas on what the problem may be, with either me or the car

As well as checking the water control valve as previously mentioned you might want to check that the fresh/recirculating air flap is working - it may be stuck on recirculating as mine was. Some details in this thread... www.pistonheads.co.uk/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&f=9&t=312402

[tvr_nut]

DarkMatter said:

Alex Gurr said:

... The only slight down side is that I can't for the life of me fathom the heater controls. Now, I have a diagram that explains it all to me, but the car insists on blasting nothing but hot air into the cabin. There is a choice of warm, or volcanic, which meant that we actually had the windows open the whole way back, despite being only 5 degrees or so outside.

Do any of you have any ideas on what the problem may be, with either me or the car

As well as checking the water control valve as previously mentioned you might want to check that the fresh/recirculating air flap is working - it may be stuck on recirculating as mine was. Some details in this thread... www.pistonheads.co.uk/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&f=9&t=312402

I suppose with the roof off, there is little difference between "outside air" and "recirc air"!! But when the roof is on and its raining (not unknown in Lancs!!) it don't 'alf make a difference to how much it steams up.

A search of the Griff forum on "heater" will return loads of stuff, inc lots of useful bits from the aforementioned DarkMatter.

(edited due to red-wine induced dyslexia)

Edited by tvr_nut on Thursday 22 February 00:30

[geoffvalenti]

Alex Gurr said:

Well, I picked the car up on Saturday and have been laughing my head off ever since. Mainly at the fuel consumption ,

You'll get used to it

My 5.2 returns about 10mpg around town this time of year unless I'm giving it any stick

Pounds per smile, its still excellent value

[Alex Gurr]

Thanks guys. I finally got around to looking at this over the weekend and now have it fixed. It turns out that the valve controlling the water flow to the heater matrix was not properly closing. The screw conecting the motor shaft to the valve was slightly loose, allowing the shaft to rotate without actually moving the valve. Once I had worked out what the issue was it was actually quite simple to fix, but taking a look at the heath robinson wiring back there did give me quite a fright

I also managed to take the door casing off and re-attach the rubber seal to the window runner, which had come loose and moved down to the bottom of the door causing the window to rattle.

What I haven't yet managed to solve is the speedo, which packed up at the weekend. I am pretty sure it is the sensor on the diff that needs replacing, but that should be a pretty straightforward fix once I get the replacement part.

Still, I learnt a lot about the car this weekend and had fun tinkering away.