retrofit of vintage air heating control valve

[MarkWebb]

Has anybody managed to do this on a finished car? It looks to be v difficult to get to the heating controls on the dash without doing a lot of damage. Also replacing the mechanical valve in a finished luggage pod looks pretty difficult as well.
Any input much appreciated as my mechanical knob to open heater vale is completely us.

[Graham-P]

Hi Mark, I have retro fitted this valve, it's not that difficult just a pain to get to. I actually placed my valve at the back of the luggage pod, 1 for easier fitment and 2 trying to keep the hot pipe from going through the pod when turned off (the majority of time).

If you plan on doing the same then you should be able to replace the heater pipe on the heater unit through the front panel (undo the fuse/relay unit) and from under the dash. If not then it should be 'just' a case of trying to get to the front jubilee clip and replace the valve.
The valves ECU unit I doublesided taped this to the inside of of the bulkhead by the door hinge and fed the connector through the gap where the heater hose goes into the luggage pod.

As for the control knob if you have the factory set up, then I believe that you just need to drill a hole to fix the knob. I have made up a panel from an upturned two dial pod and filled in the front and installed the knobs.

Wiring should be straight forward as per the supplied diagram, all the wire were long enough not too have to extend.

Hope that helps....give me a call if you get stuck....drop me a line first.
Graham

[Davrianman]

Hi Mark,

I have fitted mine in the space behind the fuse box, but it is lower than Grahams as I ran my heater pipes under the luggage containers. Yet to try it out as still finishing the car off. I can access mine through the speaker hole in the side panel.

Control is simply with a pot, but I am fitting mine into the TVR control panels that I have instead.

Cheers,

Mart

[MarkWebb]

I guess I could locate the valve in the engine bay just after the bypass pipe. and just lock the valve in the luggage pod open. I would really like to get the valve out of the luggage pod for completeness sake.
My car (which I didn't build) has the heater controls in the middle of the dash so making access to them difficult as there is an aluminium plate under the dash (not sure if this is std). It is screwed on but many of the screw heads are covered by the leather which is stuck to the dash front.