We made it to another MITG show and shine, which is the 6th one I've been to! It was running really hot too, and I think I've finally got that sorted out..
When I hooked up the inlet manifold a while ago I used the heater take off on the top of the head and fed the coolant through the manifold and back to the bottom radiator hose, just like how a normal heater is plumbed in. What I didn't realise at the time was that the hot coolant flowing from the top of the head was going straight back into the block and bypassing the radiator completely. The fresh air heater being plumbed in here means it'll be cooling the engine instead
I took the heater core in to get repaired and pressure tested. The corner got patched so it's now watertight too!
I then thought I'd start to get the fresh air heater box installed. The first problem was the front top bracket was interfering with the bonnet stay bracket. I'd never noticed before that they moved this during production, on later cars it's further back and in the middle of the two brackets
The next thing to figure out was the bottom bracket. There is a rubber clip the same as the bonnet stay holder on the inside of the bonnet. This clips to the modified u-bolt
I started drilling at the top and lined everything up and installed the lower bracket
The front bracket was removed and then I bolted it on a bit further back so it now misses the bonnet stay bracket. A quick coat of paint made it look a bit nicer
And now assembled with a new layer of foam to seal the heater core
And here it is installed and filled with coolant. I ran it up to temp and there's no leaks so far, I'll need to take it for a test drive sometime to make sure it's all working as it should
I still need to figure out a final position for the coil and horn and then work out the plumbing for the air from the heater box to the inside of the car, and also mount the heater cable
I've got some plastic demisting vents to go in and hopefully a reasonable way to control the air.
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