Fresh air ducting

[bill griffiths]

For as long as I have had my plus 2, 50/0951 (about 35 years) I have been annoyed at the bulk

and inconvenience of the fresh air ducting to either end of the dash.

At least on my car it was always a bit unsightly; it tended to be visible and on rebuilds it rather

defied logic by requiring a different sized diameter ducting at either end.

Also, the original pipe seemed to be too big in diameter to wedge happily between the rear of the glovebox

and the firewal, and the difference in diameters seemed certain to lead to inefficiencies with the none too efficient

fan arrangement to start with.

Now approaching the end of the second rebuild and again faced with the same problems, I noticed in my workshop two (happily unused)

'Pan Cones" . These devices are made of rubber and connect the down pipe from the cistern to the back of the toilet bowl.

For the purposes of flushing it. At least they do in Australia.

They come in different sizes, mine being 50mm at the 'incoming' end and about 65mm at the 'pan' end.

Now they are cheap and very light. More to the point, with a bit of lubrication they fit tightly over the output pipes from the

heater and fan box, and, with a bit of race tape as a spacer, they fit snugly over the backs of the dash face vents.

These days most parts shops sell ducting in various sizes; it usually comes ready to be expanded in length by pulling both

ends. I purchased a length for each side, 50mm in diameter. That size fits tightly onto the Pan Cone at each end and, perhaps because it is

a little thinner than the original, it fits away neatly, and especially on the passenger side, between the outlets and the dash vents.

Now if I can just find a way to remove the reference to "Pan Vent" and stamp on a Lotus number, Colin would be proud of me!!

Regards, Bill

[handi_andi]

Now that is some lateral or should it be laveral thinking and a rather neat solution. Will have a look at doing simialr when I take the dash out in the near future, as like you the ducting has always annoyed me as it is so unsightly and allot of the air seems ot be lost due to the poor ducting fit.
Andy

[bill griffiths]

I needed four of the rubber fittings. I had two; the extra two I bought from a plumbing supply shop...for $AUD3.00 each! Bill

[bill griffiths]

Perhaps I should add that I had already re-installed the dash before stumbling upon the rubber fittings. They can easily be installed, along with the 50mm ducting, with the dash in position. Bill

[mikealdren]

Bill,
when I used my +2 as an everyday car, I modified the heater to allow a modern radio to fit. At the same time (about 1980), I looked at alternative heaters (from various Cortinas which were very common in scrapyards) and I found that later Cortinas had better, more flexible, plastic trunking and that made a big improvement on the older rigid metalised paper trunking that mine had. I wouldn't go back to original type either.

Mike

[Robbie693]

Sounds like a similar thing I did to my heater, I used and modified some drain pipe connectors to create an air tight spigot for the plastic trunking to go on too. See here:

http://www.lotuselan.net/forums/elan-plus-f13/heater-rebuild-t16068-30.html