Another Heater Question

[davery]

My heater fan started screeching about ten years ago and finally stopped working a bit later. Not a big deal, as I never drive it in cold weather anyway. I had to remove the upper and lower console to remove an old radio and thought this might be the time to repair the fan. I have the fan out and is very hard to rotate. I'm going to try some lubricant for a bit to see if it frees it up. The heater has never leaked, but I noticed the core has a bit of rust. Is it time to replace? Also, the heater control valve seems to be froze, which might explain why my feet are on fire every time I drive the car. Any suggestions on how to unfreeze the valve?

[TX82FIAT]

The fan motor is pretty basic and will run off any direct 12 volt source. I'd see if the fan works after cleaning it up. Might see something when you take it out to bench test if there is an obstruction. If the core is rusted in some spots it seems it is only a matter of time before it will leak. If fan works and you can get the control valve working then consider a new heater core. If you don't use the heater, have a problem with the fan, core is rusted and valve frozen, you may consider a heater bypass with a simple brass fitting and some hose clamps. A few years back I had the same thing with a leaking valve. Had to replace the core and adapt the tubes to for positioning of new valve. System works great now. However, in hindsight, I could have kept the temporary fix bypassing the heater system in place with a lot less effort.

[RRoller123]

Seems like a lot of the same thinking about changing a clutch plate goes into this job. After all the effort expended to get in there where these components are, and given the fact that they are failing or about to fail, with a huge toxic mess as the result, it makes sense to me to replace them.

Pete

[davery]

Replacing the fan, core and valve will be about $250 in parts. And getting under the dash to replace them may or may not be something I can do any more. A couple of years ago I gave up on getting the master cylinder out and had to take it to a shop. My body doesn't bend like that any longer.

Any suggestions on how to free up the fan?

[lglade]

+1 to installing new parts. This is one of those jobs that can take several hours to complete (mine sure did), so if an extra $25, $50, or even $100 will keep me from having to repeat it, then I'm happy to write a check. When you consider that a heater core failure can ruin your carpets and padding ($200 minimum), then I'm going to take extra steps to avoid a future occurrence.

I just completed the installation of a new heater (and valves, tubes, and hoses), and I also switched to waterless coolant to prevent corrosion in the system.

[davery]

+1 to installing new parts. This is one of those jobs that can take several hours to complete (mine sure did), so if an extra $25, $50, or even $100 will keep me from having to repeat it, then I'm happy to write a check. When you consider that a heater core failure can ruin your carpets and padding ($200 minimum), then I'm going to take extra steps to avoid a future occurrence.

I just completed the installation of a new heater (and valves, tubes, and hoses), and I also switched to waterless coolant to prevent corrosion in the system.

I will probably go ahead and do that, but want to check out something first. When I bought my car 20 years ago it had an under mount AC system. I could never get it to work right and removed the in cabin hardware, but left the compressor and condenser installed. I' m kind of curious if I could replace the OEM heater with a aftermarket in-dash heater, defrost and AC unit. My guess is the compressor might still be good, but the condenser would probably need to be replaced. I may take the car to a couple of AC shops and see what they say.

[RRoller123]

I don't recall hearing mention of an aftermarket combined underdash heat and ac unit as you describe, but that would be very interesting! Let us all know what you find, eh? It is pretty unlikely after all this time that those original components under the hood are still good, certainly the seals have dried and the working fluid leaked out.

Pete

[davery]

I don't recall hearing mention of an aftermarket combined underdash heat and ac unit as you describe, but that would be very interesting! Let us all know what you find, eh? It is pretty unlikely after all this time that those original components under the hood are still good, certainly the seals have dried and the working fluid leaked out.

Pete

The combo heat/AC/defrost unit that I am looking at is used in custom hot rods.

Another question. If I wanted to bench test the fan, which wire goes where? There is a blue, red and black. I have tried every combination (I think) and it worked once, but I forgot what I did.

[RRoller123]

One that is made for the Spider, I mean, and doesn't require a bunch of hacking or an odd/awkward placement for it to be installed and work.

[davery]

One that is made for the Spider, I mean, and doesn't require a bunch of hacking or an odd/awkward placement for it to be installed and work.

I bought my first 85 spider in 1990. I didn't know anything about the car and those were the days before the internet so information was hard to come by. It had factory AC and I didn't realize until later how rare that was. Sadly, it was hit and totaled in 1994. So there must be a factory system out there, but I have not found it. I was thinking of adapting a small universal, in place of the OEM heater. It would probably have to have separate vents from the fresh air system, as the only way to turn the fresh air off is at the vent. I would love to use the same vent, but would need a door to close off the AC and fresh air from each other. And since the fresh air pushes alot of air, the door would have to be heavy duty. Of course I would use the existing defrost and center console floor vents. I would probably add two small vents on top of the map pockets and maybe two more either in the upper center dash area or under the dash towards the center.

[DieselSpider]

Rainbow Products has a few kits that might work and even a trunk mount kit that looks promising.

http://www.rainbowproductsonline.com/ne ... c-kits.php

[wizard124]

Any suggestions on how to free up the fan?

Easy fix. go here: http://www.fiatspider.com/f15/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=21844 and here: page 4 http://www.fiatspider.com/f15/viewtopic ... y&start=45

Hard part is the fan box removal. My heater valve was completely plugged; I broke the lever trying to force it. My heater core was OK, just needed some cleaning. I did this:
I dis-assembled the fan motor, cleaned and lubed the bushings with lithium grease. Runs great..no more squeaks

I dropped the heater core. There was some crud visible. Flushing with a garden hose removed a good bit of stuff, but i could see there was more residue. I needed to try something more. I ended up using "Simple Green/ Lime Scale remover". This comes in a spray bottle. CLR warns not to use on brass/aluminum...this product does not state this limitation. I figured it must be gentler and it has a different active ingredient. I used it straight out of the bottle and let it soak for 5 minutes, flushed and repeated a second time (used the entire contents). Some ugly blackish water/cleaner flushed out so it must have had some effect. No leaks so it is ready to go back in.

[DieselSpider]

Poly-urea grease is whats generally used in electric motors so using lithium can lead to a bad reaction with the oil separating from the lithium and corrupting the armature. You have to ensure that all traces of the old grease are removed to prevent a reaction. Cleanliness is required to ensure there are no compatibility issues.

One also needs to keep this in mind when changing ones grease guns cartridge as you can corrupt the gun by switching grease type to an incompatible formulation so that everything you use that gun on afterwards will suffer from grease breakdown and failure unless you pristinely clean it when changing grease types.

[wizard124]

Poly-urea grease is whats generally used in electric motors so using lithium can lead to a bad reaction with the oil separating from the lithium and corrupting the armature. You have to ensure that all traces of the old grease are removed to prevent a reaction. Cleanliness is required to ensure there are no compatibility issues.

One also needs to keep this in mind when changing ones grease guns cartridge as you can corrupt the gun by switching grease type to an incompatible formulation so that everything you use that gun on afterwards will suffer from grease breakdown and failure unless you pristinely clean it when changing grease types.

I learned something new.... I hadn't heard the term polyurea grease. I had to do some internet study.

Anyway, I used what I had at hand. Lithium grease from Napa. The fan works good. Thats all I know

[So Cal Mark]

I've done a couple of ac/heat unit installations using the 85 style dash with the two outlets in the middle. It's a lot of work to do the conversion including removing the dash and consoles, modifying the existing fresh air box from the cowl.