Bill B wrote....
Man, few things in life are as pathetic as a TR3 heater. I may have
these
true words inscribed on my tombstone when they find me frozen to death in
my
car.
Bob W now comments...
In my first 3A back in the 70's, I committed a near mortal sin by
mounting a second TR3 heater core inside the engine compartment, on the
little flat area next to the voltage regulator. I plumbed in the heater
water lines ( in parallel) with the original heater, and hacked a hole
for the airflow to enter the footwell. Of course I was drawing in engine
compartment air ( which I suppose was slightly warmer than outside) and
the fine aroma of freshly baked oil poured in whenever vigorous driving
was attempted. ( Blowby, and plenty of it..) This did actually improve
things a bit thermally, but didn't do too much good for the romantic
interludes I had hoped for. eau d' Castrol proved to not be the
aphrodisiac I had in mind. ( TS40360L, fondly remembered..... sigh.)
My current car ( TS36967) had similar thermal shortcomings, so
about 8 years ago I replaced the blower motor with a standard 'off the
shelf' American car unit, which took a bit of mounting bracket rework
( not too extensive, though), the new motor fit nicely in the same spot
and had the same diameter shaft. The air output is now quite a bit
better, although towards the end of this season the fan blades began to
clatter on the lower grill/door assembly. I think the rather crappy fan
attachment strategy had worked loose, allowing the fan to slide down on
the shaft. A bit of a PITA to tighten, but it did work OK for quite
a while.. FWIW, this car has the largest ( engine) radiator that would
fit, I had a local shop make up a custom one after the top tank
extension on the original one fell off for the second time. The heater
core works just fine with the newer big rad, no shortage of BTU's. (
and no overheating in the hottest weather, too.)
As mentioned by others on this topic, make sure the waterlines aren't
kinked anywhere, the source line ( out of the head) should be almost too
hot to hold when the car is warmed up. It is possible to get a
reasonable stream of mildly warmed air out of the heater, at least enough
to prevent frostbite!
Good Luck,
Bob Westerdale
59 3A TR36967 ( resting in the barn for the winter)
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