Howdy folks. Although my Plymouth is a "Special Deluxe", it came with the most basic heater/controls. I saw a deal on a real nice, shiny set of truly deluxe climate controls - but am unsure of the heater core and the rest of the stuff I'd need to upgrade. I feel like this must be a pretty common upgrade and would really like some advice from other who have done it. I look forward to your responses. Thanks!
Wow, where to start..... Is your car 12 volt or 6 volt, and does your current heater work, and function as it was designed to? Your basic box should have cloth covered tubes that come out of the side of the box and go up to the defroster ducts by the windshield, behind the dash. Are they there and are they in good condition? Its hard to determine upgrades when we don't know what you already have. One sure way to upgrade is to trash what you have, and call an aftermarket heat/defrost/air conditioner company and order a whole new top of the line kit specifically designed for your car. There are probably a lot of things that can be done between that and what you currently have, but we don't know what you have. Gene
thanks, gentlemen. 50 dodge - I take your point. My heater does work. And I'm operating on 12V. Defroster ducts are there and in serviceable shape. I've seen them function. I've never explored aftermarket heater/ac units. I'm sure there are many websites - but can you recommend one in particular? That sounds like a big money upgrade. Like $2G? ...and yes, 47Plym - that's exactly the piece I've got. - BTW - although I'm in Brooklyn now, I bought my car in Waynesville, MO like 20 years ago...
The aftermarket heating and air conditioning systems are fairly pricy, I've never bought or installed one myself. I suspect if you Google "vintage Air" you will get hours of reading. The question is, do you need an air conditioner and heater, or just a heater and defroster? Modern heat and defrost units are very efficient, if all you need is heat/defrost. I have a slightly modified heater box out of a 90 Dodge Dakota in my 48 Plymouth coupe. It would roast you out of the car if there were not so many points outside are can come into my car. as is, its very comfortable down to about 40 degrees and even lower if your in town. I have the option to add AC if I ever choose to. The Dakota heat box is pretty big, it takes up a very large part of the under dash area. There are several smaller truck and small car heater units that are readily available that are much smaller in size. The trick with the newer heat units are that they pull outside, fresh air, into the car and have great fans and duct work. The heat box is attached to the firewall, the coolant goes through the core in the box, and outside air enters the box, get heated up, and exits the box in the direction the duct work directs it, pushed by an efficient blower motor. The issues with the original heat box on your Plymouth are 1) it does not have fresh air. 2) the blower fan is too weak, too small, and too inefficient, and 3) it has a horrible duct work system. The inside cab air can be dealt with, if the duct work and blower fan are improved. Your current fan is a 4 blade that spins in a housing with 2 separate levels of air flow. The 4 blades can only move so much air at a given rotating speed and increasing the fan speed adds little extra air movement. A modern squirrel cage style blower motor moves a lot more air at the same speed and can really move air at a higher speed. Duct work is another area of improvement. Currently, all the air the fan can move is sent through rough inside edge paper or plastic tube. The corrugated edge upsets the air flow and the paper/plastic material looses too much heat by the time the air gets to the end of the duct. I've played around with a lot of duct work over the years, and have still not perfected it, but I can tell you larger open area, smooth, insulated duct work can move a lot of air a lot faster from the heat source to the exit point. If that air is pushed by a squirrel cage blower, the result is magnified. From here, the size of the heater core, and the temperature of the coolant play the biggest roles. A 195 thermostat will warm up the inside of a car faster then a 180 thermostat will, and a 180 will warm the car a lot faster then a 160 thermostat, and a 160 will heat up faster then no thermostat at all will, given all other things equal. I shouldn't need to add that the above thermostats all need to function correctly. Anyway, that should give to something to think about. You can probably get more info with a Google search of "automotive heating systems" or maybe not, I didn't look. Gene
Wow, Gene... that's a lot to think about. And that's what I'm gonna do. Will let you know how this pans out. Thanks so much.
A follow up - bought a model 503 heater system, having it installed to work with the deluxe controls. Also purchased a plenum from here - the only game in town, as far as I can tell... http://www.quietride.com/catalogpdfs/mopar_cars_49_62_catalog.pdf
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