So I took off the hearter parts of my parts car and cleaned them all up and painted everything did the drivers side and decided to try it out..... tempeture was about 60 outside last night and after running a few minutes the vent was putting out a weak 72 hardley any air movement. the flapper bos is working and in good condition and the dual fan blows out a fair amount of air, but it doesnt seem to make it up front... on chilly mornings and evenings I want some heat and defrost... this wont cut it in my opinion... what else has been done??? I had a crazy idea of a power inverter, and hair dryers behind the speakers, anyone done anything like this??? I have seen 12 volt hair dryers... what else has been done????? or what am I doing wrong ???? I know I have read many complaints about the heat but I had no idea it was that bad...

Give it up and get headers. heat is over rated.

Wayne -

A properly operating 914 heat system should toast you out, so something is wrong with yours. Yours is probably doing a great job of heating the outside air!

Could be any combo of: leaky or obstructed hoses & ducts & connections, rusted out heat exchangers, branch & J tubes, bad fan(s), cables & flappers not fully operating/slipping, etc., etc. Just got to check it all out one by one,maybe starting with the obvious stuff like a torn hoses - which are easy & not too expensive to replace (except the ones behind the rockers - more work there). Time to go fishin' around the 914!

While you're only 60 today - & we're that or less in SoCal so far this week - lest you think I never had it in winter weather - I used it as my DD 12/75 - 5/85 & regularly went snow skiing in the mountains with sub-zero temps! Heck - I could keep the cockpit toasty with the top off going up to Park City UT, Lake Tahoe & Mammoth CA!

I always liked that you could meter how much hot went to the upper vents & your face, vs. down low at your feet - so you didn't get that "sleepy time" from warm air in the face on a long drive!

Good Luck Bud!

Mice love to nest in our cars, check to tunnels. did you leave a cleaning rag somewhere? Miami is a nice place to live too.

I put a header on, so no heat now, but it used to get real hot. I'm working on a electric heater to go under the speaker grills myself. Using two of these for the guts.
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/disp...temnumber=96144

They actually get fairly warm, but I don't think they will get the inside too warm unless its sealed up good.

> A properly operating 914 heat system should toast you out, so something is wrong with yours.

I agree. Stock 914 heat works REALLY well...

-Steve

If in good working order, the stock system works great. Even better with the SSI heat exchangers. This should be warm and toasty. If it's not, something isn't right.

Andy

I know all the rear piper are clean and clear.. the flapper boxes valve move with the inside lever. there isd minimal crushing behind the speakers from the PO... I took apart the rear fan and cleaned and painted it it moves alot of air.. the exchangers seem to be loos onthe exhaust so maybe thats where I'm loosing the air and I will check air flow in the longs witha shop vac in the blower configuration.. I just wanted to make sure I wasent chasing a ghost... I will let you guys know later tonight Thanks

That might be right if you were measuring the temperature with your car idling in the driveway. If that's the case it should be better when you are driving. The exhaust pipes should get hotter, transferring more heat. And you'll get more air movement from the engine cooling fan overriding the too weak heater fan.

I'm not that sophisticated. In the winter, I block off a little of my front cooler and vent it to the stock heater points in the front trunk. That gives me defrost heat and does a surprisingly good job of heating the car. It takes me about 20 minutes to either install it, or take it and it's hoses totally out of the car and block off the heater points.

It's nothing as good as the original system mind you, but my exhaust plumbing is sure a lot simpler. Those work great.

Good luck

By the way what turns on the rear fan??? I have it jerry rigged rught now???

The heater level on the floor near the shifter ...

Andy

ok there is a green wire in the lever it looks like it switches ground... I have a green wire near the dizzy which I originally thought was the fan according to how I was reading the wiring diagram... I tested it it has no power regardless of lever position , so there must be a relay.. that the lever green wire triggers, I must be missing it it when I'm looking at my diagram.. is it on the the relay board?? I slid in a couple of relays in my empty spots. I dont see a breakdown in the diagram of the relay board and what relays do what,,, I'm sure I am overlooking something

I believe the auxillary fan runs off the same fuse on the relay board as the fuel pump. IIRC it's the rear fuse. Does the blower motor work if you apply 12v?
Mike

yep blower works I had it directly to battery for testing... ok found the wiring diagram on the board and the relay clicks if I pull the lever... but I think I should have power at terminal #11 I don't???? if I pull the relay there is power on the socket.. and the relay clicks but no power to terminal 11 ... What am I missing?

Doh! My bad, just read your fan works...
I drive mine regularly with the temps in the twenties and although it takes awhile to warm up, I'll get decent heat in the cabin.
Mike

Have you tried swapping out the relay with a known good one?
The rearmost relay and rear fuse are part of the blower motor circuit.
Mike

on steves note... AT IDLE if your missing the small lower aluminum flaps -or they are stuck open, you will push the air meant for the cabin into the doghouse(?). without the proper operation of those flaps the direction from the (auxilary) blower fan won't end up in the cab. higher rpm should overide the aux blower though

mike

Mine is beyond warm and edging toward too hot when full open to a pre-fan on setting.
Check you tubes up front. I have found that a shop-vac on blowing mode can get junk out of the long tubes. Also check to see that the vents up-front are working.

Depending on the year model you may need a jumper on the relay board that jumpers the fan. It's the green jumper wire in my photo below. Ignore the writing it was from another post.
Click to view attachment

Got to be something wrong with your system. I only have half of mine hooked up and when I showed up at the Buttercup build I was in a t-shirt and sweating when I got out of the car. Wore just a t-shirt on the way home too even through the snow.

don, you were sweating in the garage(at 70) and working outside in a t-shirt in the snow, your body doesn't know cold....


that said, heat will run you out of the car when working good... unlike a normal heat that you can turn down tho, it seems to have 2 options, freezing and holy crap my eyes are melting it's so hot...

Tip one.
Open front hood and remove the paper hose from the small distribution box on both sides.
Under rear of car, remove flexible hose from longitudinal connection.
Stick a shop vac on both tubes and suck out any blockage....mice nests, dust etc etc etc.

Tip two.
The front distribution box leaks after 35 years.
Look at it closely...both sides.
The box gets fed by two hoses....one from the fresh air box under the windshield and the other is from the rear heater hose.
Remove the paper tube that goes to the fresh air box and save it.
Take off both sides.
Cover all four holes with rattle can paint covers and use screw clamps to hold them on...they fit really nice.

Hook up the heater hose to the original connection it went to.
Now try it.

If you set the dash knobs in the right direction you will get pure hot air now...not a dilutted hot/cold air thing.

RIch

I'm going to try the paint cap thing tomorrow, It was the damn relay socket if i wiggle the relay or take it almost out it would fire up the blower,, I unhooked the heat hoses at the speaker grill and used a shop vac on blow, and blew both directions to the engine bay with the flex hoses un hooked, and up to the dash, it was fairly clean only dust came out... nothing big... then we hooked up the lines again and hooked the shop vac to the blower hoses and found as many leaks as we could and used high temp sillycone Also I ran a bolt through the rear of the heat exchanger to clamp it down to the exhaust pipes, we had minimal leaks,, made sure the lever was fully opening up the boxes.. Then we hooked back up the blower and hardly any air flow , then we fired up the engine even at 2500 rpm hardley any air coming through,,,, there is something I am missing

with the others about 914 heat. If you drive around at 3000rpm, it will toast you out. Especially if you have a window cracked open to provide airflow. You have to remove all blockages as well as air leaks in your heat system. I would (and did) do that first.

IIWY, I would forget about that silly little electric blower motor for the time being. It will only do any good at idle speeds or just above. Once you get the engine running at 2500 rpm and over, the engine fan will overcome anything the pathetic little electric blower motor will provide anyway. My blower doesn't work and I never bothered to figure out why because they are pretty much worthless anyway.

Good info Rich. If the Gods are willing, this might make it to the classics thread!

My heater lever is only up just enough to get my index finger under it and it's perfect driving down the freeway. Any more and I get burned out of the car. And my blower fan is disconnected and the front blower is currently inop (I gotta get that one working for better defrost).

SSI heater boxes ROCK!!

Mine works great. I can drive with the roof out and the windows up down to 50 deg. F comfortably (with a jacket). I have the splitter and hose for the passenger side blower air.

in what positions do you have the dash HEAT control lever and air flow levers? it's pretty important...with one air control valve to body tube disconected at the body, does hot air come out of the tube?

IIRC, the wires for the heater blower are different colors. Coming from the wiring harness there should be a brown (ground) wire and a green wire. From the fan, a brown wire and a yellow wire (or maybe it's the other way around).