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Balancing heater air flow - driver and passenger


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As all of us that own pre-Puma 90s and barges know, air flow from the heater is stronger on the passenger side as it's closest to the heater.

I would like to get a bit more air flow into the drivers side as I'm usually the only one in it.

Have any of you esteemed people tried any tricks to remedy this ?

I've seen the suggestion of using tea light candle cases, with a smaller hole cut in the base, inserted into the duct pipe for the lower vent and the demist but are there any other tricks that people have sucessfully tried ?

TIA

Mo

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I removed the plastic vents from the footwell to decrease the obstruction to flow and get more air out of the box. To balance the flow out a little, i thought i might put the one back onto the passenger side and leave it off of the driver side. (i've lost the damn vents in the garage though so havent been able to try it out yet!)

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Daft idea but couldn't you just shove a bit of rag into the passenger side footwell vent, blocking it off? would be less faff and easy to remove as and when needed

thats what i do with a bit of tape over the upper holes

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I had a farily time consuming idea to improve the heater effectiveness in general.

Now I don't think the amount of puff available from a correctly functioning blower is too dismal... if only it could blow hotter air.

Most of my trips are fairly short, less than 10 miles to work each day. My V8 RRC is normally chucking out fairly warm air within a few minutes of startup, even in our current low temperatures. However the 90 takes at least half the trip to work to warm the inside up (hard top), despite having exactly the same engine! The heater radiators aren't that different in volume either.

Now jokes about drafts in the Landy aside, I think the biggest heat loss is in the ducting, which as Ralph has pointed out is the lower dash.

The ducting is therefore a large surface area of cold steel, and it very efficiently soaks up any heat the blower has managed to push through, until it has warmed itself sufficiently and feels like sharing the surplus. Personally I think this is both thoughtless and greedy of the lower dash, I want that warmth on my toes and to clear the windscreen :angry2: .

My idea is to dismantle the lower dash and fit flexible plastic air ducting to each vent position ( :hysterical: :hysterical: :hysterical: , yeah, like I'll ever get time to do that :hysterical: ), as found on the Rangey's and most modern cars heating systems. If this doesn't reduce the time it takes for warm air to hit the screen, I'll get back in my nice warm Rangey until next summer and throw away this keyboard.

So, who's going to try this out and let me know how worthwhile an exercise it would be :lol:

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My idea is to dismantle the lower dash and fit flexible plastic air ducting to each vent position ( :hysterical: :hysterical: :hysterical: , yeah, like I'll ever get time to do that :hysterical: ), as found on the Rangey's and most modern cars heating systems. If this doesn't reduce the time it takes for warm air to hit the screen, I'll get back in my nice warm Rangey until next summer and throw away this keyboard.

Good idea and i think this would work. Perhaps insulating the inside of the heater ducting might also work as it would decrease the cold metal that the air would be losing heat to on the way to your toes - probably just a little less work than the ducting as the dash would still have to come apart.

I'm not going to try it for you though as i fitted my eberspacher before the winter! Already demonstrated to Mo :P

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