S4 heater blows cold

[GrUmPyBoDgEr]

Thanks John



The last time I took that approach with a Healey 3000 it took nearly four years to rebuild and I sold it the first week back on the road as I hated it ! The neighbours nicknamed the car " you vicious bastard " as apparently that all they heard for years coming from the garage ! I wonder if I still have the nameplate they gave me ?

Best..Andy

What a great anecdote! One which I think all of us can identify with

You can always trust Gary to come up with a helpful Photo, they make life so much simpler.
The Smiths heater was taken from the BMC parts shelf & is a fair design considering the era it comes from.
The fan needs a volume of air in front of it for it to work efficiently, that air then travels across to the heater matrix's.
Elans can be nice & toasty inside when everything is working OK.

Cheers
John

[garyeanderson]

heater core

[gjz30075]

I would suggest as follows: Put the front of the car on ramps to prevent airlocks. First i would fit a new thermostat, which is always a good idea so the engine reaches running temp quickly.
remove heater hose at the cylinderhead and connect to garden watering hose. remove heater hose from front carb side of engine. Turn on garden water supply to flush out sediment from heater matrix. Reconnect heater hoses, fill with a good quality anti-freeze and bled system.
Alan B

Prof, did you do this? If there was any blockage, I suspect water would not come out the other heater hose.

Greg Z

[professor]

Hi Greg

Yes I did. It seems to flow well. I think it is cold air passing the matrix as the foam has disappeared ! Ugh.

I am trying to figure out how to fix it without a weeks work..

Cheers
Andy

[69S4]

I've got much the same problem with the heater and have been putting off the task of stripping everything down. Gary's pictures are very helpful though. The matrix looks massive though - maybe the car would cool better if I put that in front of the engine and the normal s4 rad behind the dash

[Rob_LaMoreaux]

The heater core does work quite well to cool the car. Back when I had the stromberg engine with too lean of a mixture I had a number of times I had to turn the heater on to get the heat down.

The only things I can think of that would cause the right side to be cold are:

1. the left side is sucking all the heat out before it get to the right.
If you close the left door and the right then goes hot this is it, but that would be weird.
2. the right side has clogged fins and all the air is going around the core
This is likely since the fins are easily misaligned.
3. the fins have become detached from the tubes.
This is the worst, but also least likely.

Hope that helps. I had the foam around the fan opening shift and keep the fan from turning when I put the car back together back in 2001. I still haven't gotten the dash apart enough to fix it, so my heater only work when the car is moving.

Rob

[ericbushby]

Hello Professor,
Just a thought. What if the water flow is so low that the left side cools the water down totally before it gets to the right hand side. This would show by the the return water pipe being cold where it goes back to the engine. A restriction anywhere in the circuit would cause this and it may not be a fault in the heater.
Best of luck
Eric in Burnley
67 Type 45 S3SE

[Elanintheforest]

Professor Andy
I also spent 4 years, actually nearer 5, restoring a Healey 3000. I?d wanted one since I was a kid when the guy next door bought a new one in '67. I hated it within 100 miles of driving it! I took it to a couple of Healey specialists who pronounced it one of the best cars they'd driven, but to me, it felt like driving a truck. It stayed in the garage for 2 years unloved.

I put the disappointment down to having had an Elan for the previous 20 years or so, which by comparison handled so much better and was so much faster. And even far more comfy for my 6ft 5 inch frame to fit into! I eventually swapped the Healey for an E Type which is much more like a metal Elan.......not so much with the handling, but the ride is superb, and the large torquey lump up front brings a smile. I still think that the Healey is one of the most beautiful convertibles ever made though.

It is a bit of a rule I'm afraid to sort the heater box if the dash is coming out, but if the worst comes to the worst, it's not a huge job to pull the dash out. Loads of labels to mark up the wiring....but I don't need to tell you this! I would probably leave it for this year, and then pull the dash when you retire the car next autumn....and do the wiper motor and wheel boxes as well!

Good luck....Mark

[professor]

Hi guys..many thanks for all your replies. All very helpful.


I have been working on the Elan but decided first to fit a pair of TTRacing solid drive shafts and restricted dampers. The old dampers were peened in to stop them coming loose so a nightmare to undo as they damage the fine threads ! What sort of idiot thought this a good idea ? What is wrong with lock wire or Locktite ?

You may think this is a " distraction activity " from fixing the heater, but I can now check the heater output without hitting my head on the steering wheel due to the " whiplash effect" induced by the doughnuts. Ha.

So, I have deduced that the RH heater matrix is poorly sealed , proberbly due to the foam seal being old or displaced. Concequently cold air is bleeding around the matrix and is overwhelming the hot air. I have taken off the trim panel and used builders foam to seal around the matrix via the tube attached to the aerosol can.

Result..hot air now coming from the RH vent. So I don't have to take out the dash again !

The drive shafts are a great upgrade and transform the driving experience . Should have done it years ago.

All the best and many thanks again..Happy Xmas and New Year..best, Andy

[Rob_LaMoreaux]

The peening to keep the top nut on the rear shocks is factory. Back then they didn't have the loctite we have now and there isn't much place to put lock wire. The shock inserts I got came with new top nuts so the threads getting messed on the originals was not a problem. I ran a good knife through the tube threads to clean them up and loctited the new nut. It has worked since.

Rob

[professor]

Hi Rob..interesting. However, Loctite has been around since the 1950s and was used by Lotus on the race teams since the 1960s. I know this as I am very old and use to work on Lotus race cars and spent 12 years in Formula One in the 60s and 70s.

They could have welded a tag on the outer tube to Lockwire the screw cap but this or Loctite would have cost a few pence per car. Chapman would not have paid ! He refused to galvanise the chassis as it cost 50 pence each.

So, they peened the tube which is very poor practice as it deforms the tube and damages the threads. Some assembly workers were more brutal than others too so some tubes are scrap. However, it is not unknown for a new damper to come loose after a few miles as the aluminium is damaged as it screws in even if Loctite is used.

Many of the problems we suffer with these cars is due to the dire financial position Lotus were in at the launch due to the lack of profit from previous models. Hence, every penny was shaved off procurement and production with disastrous consequences for the long term survival and performance of the company. We are still living with this today. A great shame.

All the best..Andy

[sprinter55]

Hi Professor Andy !

No need to be quite so pessimistic regarding lotus production reacting to market economics. The fact that so many of these brilliant iconic cars are on the road today, and loved with a passion testifies to their longevity !!

The expert engineers around these parts love a challenge, so some margin to improve is, in fact, a bonus I would suggest !

I look forward to wishing my sprint a 'Happy 50th Birthday' very soon next year !!

[Rob_LaMoreaux]

Knowing that the workshop manual states it is peened, and to peen the replacement I assumed that something like loctite was not available. I guess I was wrong so it could have been cost, or it could have been an incompatibility with the shock fluid in the tube. Either way it was done at the factory according to all the documentation I've seen.

Rob

[alan.barker]

i understood you just centre punched the tube inline with the slot after fitting new insert (never peen the top of the tube). To dismantle you just drill a small hole in the centre punch just large enough to remove it. After the insert unscrews without damage to thread
Alan B