BLACKJACK that shroud thing on your exhaust manifold is great.. Made me think of useing my boat manifold (waterjackets) as a heat source, similar to your set-up but I don't need a shroud.
You just need a source of moving air to push the heat into the car - on this the shroud peeks out from under the hood. But you could use a fan to push or pull it through to the cabin.
There seems to be some interest here in primitive heaters like the Model A ones with hot air shroud attached... There are others. Early V8 Fords til 1939 were only available with exhaust heaters, and those remained available until WWII. The heat elemrnt in all of these was a muffler-looking can near the engine picking up the exhaust from both banks; Inside the can was a sealed to the shroud pipe passing the exhaust through, with fins to transfer heat into the empth can area around the pipe. The can had two stacks on it, air in and out. The out led to a vent in the car like that shown above, often with a second for the back seat and sometimes a branch for defrosting. On the earlier cars, the "in" was handled by a simple pipe leading to a scoop right behind the fan. On later cars, a blower was hooked up for forced air. I think a hollowed out round can muffler with a stainless pipe shoved through the middle and air ports welded on would be an adequate start on one of these...
J-Storm gave me an small air cond. evaporator. 8"x8"x3". It is aluminum,with copper tubing. I think it would work fine for a heater core. I am going to plumb it with copper hardlines,with a shutoff valve on the intake manifold(SBC). I have a small blade-type fan that I will use to move the air around with. I like the idea of the old gas fill,with a scoop,but would be a leaker in the rain. The Southwind had a burned out glow plug. Hopefully I can get some snaps of the project before tech week is over.Sparky
my dad just brought home 3 brand new in the box heaters that they put in like route trucks (bread trucks) they are pretty compact about 8x8 and have a little fan on them...... maybe something like that would work for you guys...... the studebaker has 2 heaters in it....but i unhooked both of them lol
If you go w/ a "water heater" type...why not pull an under seat type from a Pontaic or chrysler....there are lots of those still available. For my A-coupe, I'm thinking of running a firewall type and one for under the seat w/ a fan (that blows up into your seat and bum)
You said "BUM"! I would look at the ones from the 30s and 40s also. Thats what I would put in my car.
My old man used to tell me about northern Illinois winters, and what he did to stay warm in cars in the thirties. 1) Park 'em in the barn, with the cows. Always enough body heat there... 2) For heat, before he bought a Southwind, he had a board with a bunch of holes drilled into it, and candles put into the holes. Light candles, enjoy heat!! And it's TRAD!!! Might not work so well in a roadster... Cosmo
The size of a school buss heater is about the size of the coupe! hahhaha Although some older Crowns have a rear heater under a seat, but those too are BIG for a little coupe. But the rear heater would work great if you had the trunk to put it in then plumb some ducts to the front.
I used one of the small square repop heaters with the door on the front and door on each side. I didn't want to ugly up things in the engine bay so I rotated the core 90 degrees with the hoses coming out the side. They run along the firewall to the side of the cowl then down through the floor then inside the frame running forward. I don't have a pic of the heater but you can see how the plumbing looks on the engine. The hoses kinda blend in enough to meet my needs. I have side curtains and last winter drove the rod every day that the roads were dry, even the low 20s..........and kept warm but not hot. At higher temps with such small space I have to run the two speed fan on low. I really wanted a rod I could drive in the winter with out the ugly hoses and came up with a decent compromise in my opinion. Plus if you look in the books you can find a lot of rods running heaters.........and driving in the snow!
Fuelpump put a small unit from Vintage Air in his shoebox and it does the job. The price was about $100 or a little more. It mounts easily and really takes the chill off. Frank
Eat lots of chilli, atleast the seat will be warm. roflmao Take a look at an old ford courier. nice size, cable controls.
I've used the old trick of a candle in a coffee can. You use a large flat candle and punch holes around the side of the can. Light the candle and put the lid back on the can. It needs to be fixed down so it doesn't fall over and be aware that the can gets pretty hot. It's good as a hand warmer in an open car but will warm up a closed car if there aren't too many draughts. It kicks out much more heat than one of those WalMart fan heaters.
Second snap. I soldered some copper nipples onto the inlet/outlet tubes. The core will be positioned inside of my hollowed out gas tank.and almost out of sight,leaving footroom for a passenger. There is very little space in an A sedan,but this should be fine. A small fan will be added later. Sparky
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