Decent heating into Defender

[cookie64]

Decent heating into a Land Rover Defender.

The first step was to source a decent heater matrix as the landy one if naff.

Luckily I had an mgf sat there waiting for parts to be robbed

So I stiripped the whole air box out and took it into work, it looks like this: (ignore the arrow for now)

I then looked at the Matrix compared to my old one and decided it wouldn’t fit, so onwards with trying to make this thing fit in.

The first thing I did was to cut off the unnessesary ducting from the front and bottom like this :

Next I removed the old foot-vent control arm and sealed the flap closed using silicone sealant:

Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures of the next stage but basicly I made a piece of new ducting to make this new matrix connect up to the old hole in the bulkhead, but I looks something like this:

Im not very good act diagrams but it kinda gives a good idea.

I made this out of thin stainless steel and welded it all together

Before siliconeing to bulkhead it is wise to change the temperature resistors marked as R on the first picture to uprated ones (about 30 quids on ebay but they will take the abuse of off roading better)

This was then siliconed onto the heater matrix box and then into the hole in the bulkhead.

Now obviously this doesn’t take up the space the old one did so I made a lil L bracket with a 90 degree twist on the long leg so that the back end of the box will be supported, this bolts onto an original bolt hole on the box and onto the lower mount for the washer bottle, on the wheel arch (this needs bottle needs to be relocated really but I couldn’t be bothered so just zip tied it to the L bracket for the heater.

The next stage is to make it actually work with the car so the old levers get ripped out of the dash YAYYYYY.

Now I fitted a mud dash with 3 controls in it but this is upto your preferences really.

The first dial is fan speed control.

This is wired up pretty easy as I took the electric switch out of the mg with heater so it was just fix the wires back together according to colour and add an earth and ingnition swithched live.

The second control is temperature I havnt actually fitted the gubbins yet but know how to do it so I went and bought an electronic heater control valve from ford for a mk5 fiesta: (these are also in pumas, kas, and some transits.

Now I picked the fiesta one as it has two ins and outs and a recirc.

Basically there are two valves in it one on the feed to matrix and one on the return. But when these are closed there is a recirculation line between them so if I turn the heat off I don’t stop the coolant flow in the engine as it just comes up the in and gets diverted straight into the return, cutting out the matrix all together.

To control this I have robbed the heat control switch out my mates fiesta, he might notice when it gets cold again TEE HEE HEE and a quick look at the wiring schematics in his Haynes manual should help me wire those together.

The Third Switch is purely for opening the foot flaps, as I have set it up so it permanently blows at the screen and optional to the feet.

For this I took another dial out of the MG as it is simply a lever connected through gear to a knob.

I had to make a new control wire for this as its longer than the old one and the only place I could find that made custom control wires was in America. I did this by using a thin stainless steel TIG feed wire rod and a piece of bike brake outer cable. Simples

End results is lovely heat all year round no matter how cold it is, also it heats up a lot quicker than the original one as is newer and better design and it gets hotter because its designed for a convertible car.

[TSD]

Those Ford heater control valves are so comically unreliable, they should come in a **itpart box. Presumably thats why there are loads for sale on the bay.

Mine failed while sat on a shelf - tested it when I bought it (new), put it to one side while the project came together, then when I dug it out it was siezed solid. Seemed the plastic plunger had become one with the seat, it snapped when I tried to separate it.

[Happyoldgit]

I've cleaned up this thread a bit.

[Ally V8]

Are we now denied a sense of humour ?

[Phils truck]

I've cleaned up this thread a bit.

publicising the fitting of other vehicle manufacturer components into a Landrover is far more an insult that needs censoring, than 2 Landrover owners having a kind debate if the defender is somewhat better than the Discovery.

Either way, I am thankful for cookie64 in sharing his experience, and I "was thankful" for views on what Landrover some owned had better heating, or what Landrover they owned is justified with no heating.

If your Landrover air conditioner magically works Miserableolgit, switch it on and cool down with the cencorship....

Regards Phil...

[Happyoldgit]

Are we now denied a sense of humour ?

If you've got a problem then PM me - same applies to Mo or anyone else

[Mo Murphy]

I'll pass on the PM thanks MOG, I know that for the pointless exercise that it is

Mo

[Mark]

I'm sorry, I don't understand.

This is a really good technical thread about an innovative and interesting modification the OP has done to his defender - exactly the sort of thing this place is for. Excellent.

For some reason, the only input from a number of people was to get into defender vs disco arguments - not constructive or helpful or even particularly amusing tbh.

So Steve removed them to keep this thread on topic - exactly the job of the moderator - I would have done exactly the same thing to preseve the usefulness of this thread.

Everyone, read the forum charter - this is a tech forum. Non Tech stuff will be moderated - always has been, always will be.

[/rant]

Mark

[Gromit]

[/rant]

Well said Mark.

[Lars L]

As we all know, there are some "uprated" ally heater cores being sold for lots. Last year I bought a bog standard one from Paddock and to my surprise that too was made in ally. Looked promising since aluminium transfers heat better than copper or whatever the old one was made of. Did it improve the heating? No, not really...

Some over here say that a core from a Volvo 740 can be fitted with some tinkering. I'll try that before the cold weather comes. Volvos are known for effective heaters, so maybe...

[Ally V8]

What a high handed attitude ! My original comment was just a light hearted comment - we all know how cold and draughty Defenders are,nearly as bad as my drive to work this morning in my IIA with no door tops and a wet seat.Came home in the Disco with a dry bum listening to Radio 2.Both cars have their place.

LIGHTEN UP !!

[Happyoldgit]

What a high handed attitude ! My original comment was just a light hearted comment - we all know how cold and draughty Defenders are,nearly as bad as my drive to work this morning in my IIA with no door tops and a wet seat.Came home in the Disco with a dry bum listening to Radio 2.Both cars have their place.

LIGHTEN UP !!

No.

The Discovery v Defender v Range Rover v Freelander v everything else has been done to death both here and elsewhere before.

This is one of several vehicle specific technical sections we have which are provided for asking vehicle specific questions and advice. The posts stayed for a while until I felt they were pulling the thread way too far away from the excellent post by cookie64 so they (and one of mine) were removed - just as this and some of the other subsequent posts in this thread will be binned too.

Any more problems then PM me or one of the other mods as anything on the matter posted here is more than likely to get binned.

[Ally V8]

If you've got a problem then PM me - same applies to Mo or anyone else

I think we can take that as a yes then.

(In no way did I want to restart a "Versus" row,it was a polite joke - no more no less.)

If you look at my posts since joining I think you may see that I have offered a great deal of technical advice beyond what most owners would be expected to know.If you cant give a little room for a joke now and again its a poor show.Maybe even try running a LR garage for over 20 years.

[Happyoldgit]

I think we can take that as a yes then.

(In no way did I want to restart a "Versus" row,it was a polite joke - no more no less.)

If you look at my posts since joining I think you may see that I have offered a great deal of technical advice beyond what most owners would be expected to know.If you cant give a little room for a joke now and again its a poor show.Maybe even try running a LR garage for over 20 years.

Perhaps you should try moderating for a few years too. Since you are still posting stuff which is totally irrelevant to the subject of the thread perhaps I can only assume you have overlooked the following:

Any more problems then PM me or one of the other mods as anything on the matter posted here is more than likely to get binned.

I'm now locking this thread, the OT posts will be removed at some point and then perhaps the thread will be unlocked.

[western]

A good tech post, Cookie, Thanks for taking the time to dig out your thoughts/photo's,

I'm quite happy with the original heater unit, which works fine if the cables are set up correctly & I did a post which is listed in our tech archive as 'defender heater checks'

Please all keep to the subject, we don't need a inter vehicle rivalary here.