Brrr ..Heater Mods

[350Matt]

Hello All People do still use this category don't they? Anyway can anyone offer any advice about removing the flat 350/390 type dashboards? As I'm going to try and modify the heater / de-misting system so that it works a bit better, well at all would be nice. Cheers Matt

[rob350]

Wedge owners are waking up after the Christmas Break. My only advice is buy the Steve Heath book, it has a couple of photos on how to remove the dash. By the way does anyone know the origin of the fresh air vents -- one of mine won't stay open (1987 350i)

[mark350]

If you find out how to make the screen de-mist. PLEASE LET ME KNOW! An idea of where to start to modify the system would be good!

[350matt]

Well I've gone ahead and done it, the dash is actually pretty easy to remove apart from the 50 or so tiny cuts /scratches your hands get while undoing the two clamp bolts tucked under the dash. I found large leaks in the crude plastic 'T' manifold which pipes the hot air up from the heater matrix and into another bent plastic manifold which runs the length of the screen. Hot gluing this all back together must have helped. I also fitted a small 12V heater element into the manifold and an additional fan from a small hairdrier into the manifold. Also the main fan has a 2 sided rotor one side pulls air in from the bonnet inlet the other pulls from the cabin. So the system is on constant re-circ all the time, explains why opening a window helps quite a bit, a proper cabin vent (like a griff) would probably help and is on my list. Finally I also added some small side window demist ducting (from a metro) and plumbed these off from the main supply box. Also teh two cabin vents in the dash just kinda poke thru some foam and into the main box sealing these with lots of tank tape (you can just about get to tehm thru the clock hole) has also helped. The end result? Well it's still not brilliant and takes it's time but it does demist in wet weather and stay demisted as opposed to only working in dry conditions. E-mail me if you want more details Matt (Sore hands) Feasey

[wooly350i]

Wedgie said:

The previous owner of my car spent a huge amount of time trying to sort this problem: the car now has two massive vents under the screen but still won't clear, although the fan sounds like it's creating a tornado under the dash. The GRP heater boxes were famous for poor sealing from the word 'go', and a decade or more of ageing doesn't help the foam rubber seals on the flap valves.

So a decade later Ian does it work any better now,got bored so i thought id bump this one back from April 2001 to see if you remember !

[pwd95]

Holy thread resurection Batman.........

This has to be a record.

Must be.

[Oz2]

RECKON!

[wooly350i]

Holy wedgedom!! Quite funny really,different names pretty much today(except wedg1e of coarse) asking the same questions over ten years later,I wonder how our answers have moved on or back! I've done the very same with the heater box except for the added element,wonder if that's still working.

Edited by wooly350i on Sunday 19th June 07:18

[Wedg1e]

wooly350i said:

So a decade later Ian does it work any better now,got bored so i thought id bump this one back from April 2001 to see if you remember !

No, never did get round to looking at it

Typically, I just got the car out for a brief spin and as soon as I took the roof off, the heavens opened