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TR2/3/3A TR3 heater options

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H

hermanmaire

Jedi Hopeful
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Just wondering if there is any heaters options other than the original that would easily fit?

Are the original heaters any good ? Mine needs a FULL rebuild .

I have a original Smith heater in my 1959 Land Rover and its pretty terrible, it barely provides enough heat and they do not do a good job of demisting in damp condition.

any opinions appreciated.
 
Herm...I installed a Spitfire heater in my 60 3A. It took very little work to make it slide right in there. Rather than the sidescreen round unit it is a box that looks more like a Kleenex box. Doors open on each side for the heat. I would not say that the heat would blast you out of there...but we think it is almost 2X as much as the stock unit. Have kept the stock unit on the shelf in case the next person wants it. Installed the Spit heater in a afternoon. Found them pretty easy to find.
Good luck. Gil NoCal
 
<span style="font-style: italic">[Edit: Darrell beat me to it... I guess I'm among the 'some folks']</span>

I installed one of these:

https://www.maradyne.com/maradyne_mobile/products/heaters/5000.html

Pretty straight forward but did require some modification to the unit. I used a cardboard dummy to work out location:

Heater1.jpg~original


Flipped the core 180* to present the correct side rearward, sweated on some elbows & adaptors for easy connection:

Heater2.jpg~original


Fits well enough in the old space, bolted thru the firewall to the back of the battery box:

Heater3.jpg~original


I did not run the defroster tubes because of where I live but have seen others adapt the unit output holes to the stock tubes. My prior (& leaky) heater was non-stock and the price, effectiveness and availability of the original style put me off them. I considered the Spit heater but in the end thought a new unit (though not cheap) was most likely trouble free. Puts out a lot of heat and (now that I am getting the radiator recored) should easily handle a 7# cap.
 
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Thanks for the replys,

I will look into maradyne and spitfire heater. I looked on the website but there dont have a price list, what is the cost of the maradyne?

I was honestly looking at one of these but I have to check how much room there is to work with

https://www.ebay.com/itm/UNIVERSAL-HEATER...r#ht_500wt_1156
 
I looked at that one (Mojave) but went with the Maradyne because others had used it successfully. They appear to be on ebaY as well as from various dealers:

Maradyne Heater

Different view there -- you can see the studs I used for mounting (I think I used just the top 2) and the holes which I duplicated on the opposite side so I could rotate the inlet/outlet to the other side.

Worst interefernce in the fit is the choke cable mechanism because on a TR3 you have that rigid section of about 3" behind the knob. Can be done though.
 
WOW... when you said the maradyne was "not cheap" you had me thinking it was $400-500+.
The price in the ebay link looks like a great deal . This looks like a great alternative to the original heater.

Is the fan fairly quite ?

thanks again
 
For the Land Rover (and maybe even for the TR3A), you might want to contact Steve Hedke at British Pacific. I don't recall the details, but they sell an improved round heater that I saw mounted in a TR3, and he said it was very popular with the LR crowd.

Steve mentioned that one of the big advantages over the original Smiths was that the new heater (sorry I can't recall the name) uses a single water tube rather than a bunch of smaller tubes in parallel. That makes it much less likely to get clogged with sediment (which appears to be the major problem with every TR3 Smiths heater that I have seen).

British Pacific Ltd.
Land Rover Parts & Accessories since 1974
26007 Huntington Lane, unit 2
Valencia, CA. 91355 USA
fax: 661 257-9765
orders: 800 554-4133
tech: 661 257-8634
e-mail: britpac@aol.com
https://www.landroverparts.us/
 
hermanmaire said:
...Is the fan fairly quite?
Click to expand...

Yes, fairly quiet -- not that it matters a great deal (in my car anyway) as I usually have the top down, ear plugs in, etc. in cold whether.

But Steve H is a true TR3 guy and you shouold definitely find out what if anything he has come up with for these cars.
 
From what I understand the Clayton Heater is still made and is a direct replacement for the smiths heater. A used one is available on ebay in the uk Ebay uk
 
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