• Hi Guest!
    You can help ensure that British Car Forum (BCF) continues to provide a great place to engage in the British car hobby! If you find BCF a beneficial community, please consider supporting our efforts with a subscription.
    There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Subscribers don't see this gawd-aweful banner
Tips
Tips

Aftermarket heater/defroster with 3 speed fan

Share this page

HealeyPassion

HealeyPassion

Jedi Warrior
Country flag
Offline
How I spent 3 weeks during coronavirus self-isolation. Have you ever been disappointed in the heater/defroster in you AH? Cape Int'l sells a nice modern replacement, but unfortunately I was using some of that space for the ECU on my EFI build. So, I went to Vintage Air for a solution. They sell a small modern heater/defroster unit that looked about right. The original pathetic one speed fan is now deleted... replaced by efficient 3 speed fan feeding on "recirculated" air. Unfortunately, the nice 3 speed fan sits on top of the heater core unit. That made it too tall for under the dash of my Healey. The fix for that was to relocate the fan to a new location and fabricate a plenum on the heater core unit. In my experience, the package tray has way more room than I ever need for the few things I usually take with (sunglasses and phone), so I commandeered some of that space for the fan. I also put a trim plate in front of the new plumbing... the trim plate has a twin USB plug in which will come in handy when powering my laptop to tune the EFI.

1 AH Heater Core and Fan.jpg 2 AH Heater core with collector box placement.jpg 3 AH 3 speed fan 3 unit.jpg 4 AH Heater Core mounting frame.jpg 6 AH Htr core w plenum S50 1051.jpg 7 a AH Htr core w plenum S50 0966.jpg 7 AH Htr core w plenum S50 1053.jpg 10 AH Htr plumbing S50 1011.jpg 12 AH Htr Assembly w trim S50 1049.jpg 7 b AH Htr mount S50 0953.jpg​
 
Last edited:
Lin, here is the Vintage Air Heater Defroster as it comes packaged from them. The 3 speed fan is easily removed from the heater core with a few screws. The unit has 3 modes.... full heat, full defroster and half/half heat/defrost... and the heat is regulated by a rotary dial.


15 AH Htr Def Vin Air S50 1107.jpg 16 AH Htr Def Vin Air S50 1110.jpg 17 AH Htr Def Vin Air S50 1111.jpg
 
I should add that the unit comes with three knob control. While it would certainly be adequate, it is plastic, since I was deleting the need for the original heater/defroster controls, I decided to fabricate a metal piece that would fit in the original location. I don't have a bunch of fancy tools, so this is how I did it. I used 2 3/8" plates to make the form, sandwiched 16g metal between them, hammered the metal into shape, welded and smoothed the edges... done. Now I'll have it powder coated in wrinkle finish. It will fit in the curve of the dash occupied by original htr/def. controls


1 Htr cntrls 16G S50 1077.jpg 2 Htr cntrls bld S50 1078.jpg 3 Htr cntrls bld S50 1079.jpg 4 Htr cntrls bld S50 1085.jpg .5 Htr cntrls bld S50 1080.jpg 6 Htr cntrls bld S50 1104.jpg 7 Htr cntrls bld S50 1116.jpg
 
Last edited:
John, can you share some specifics on how you made this? Pictures of build? Looks a bit like what Gary Hodson did.

Steve
 
When we were at the 2017 International Meet in Monterey, my wife dragged me over to Gary Hodson's car and said; "I want this!" Since she is SHMBO, I took photos, talked to Gary, got some sketches and a copy of Gary's article in Healey Marque and a few others.

So, yes, Gary's car was the inspiration.
 
Steve,
I'm confused. I see 2 pipes coming out of your plenums. Is one for outside air?
Richard
 
i put one of those heater defroster units in a kit car a few years back they are easy to install. controls are prewired and operate water valve and blower speed. and, the defroster works excellently1 i have another unit to put in my bn6 nasty boy primarily for the defroster....not sure i will need much heat. highly recommend especially in limited space.
 
BoyRacer said:
Steve,
I'm confused. I see 2 pipes coming out of your plenums. Is one for outside air?
Richard
Click to expand...

Richard, the 2 pipes for the plenum are both inputs from the 3 speed fan... the fan (blower) output volume would require a larger inlet than I could put in the space so I put in 2 outputs/inputs to handle the volume the fan puts out. I hope this helps.

Steve
 
John Turney said:
When we were at the 2017 International Meet in Monterey, my wife dragged me over to Gary Hodson's car and said; "I want this!" Since she is SHMBO, I took photos, talked to Gary, got some sketches and a copy of Gary's article in Healey Marque and a few others.

So, yes, Gary's car was the inspiration.
Click to expand...
What issue of the Marque was Gary’s article in? Thanks
 
Back
Top