Heater box seal help advise please

Hi all

Have removed heater box, replaced the matrix and decided to do the job properly new seals etc. Fan end seal fits no drama. Bulkhead head end seems very big and when i go to fit heater box i cannot get the box high enough or near enough to bulkhead to get the bolts in alignment.

Any body fitted one of these and has some tips?

Am i best to throw seal away and make my own with pipe lagging or something, or hack the supplied one about.

Cheers

Cavey

It is a bit of a struggle to get the bolt holes to line up.
The rectangular hole in the fan is very large large compared to the hole in the bulkhead. The seal is, therefore, very big. Mine was goosed, so I fabricated a cover with a rectangular hole in it to match the bulkhead hole. This took the outlet to the right angle to make it flush with the bulkhead, so I could use some strips of 3mm adhesive foam rubber as a seal.
This is a picture of the fabrication, just before I cut the rectangular hole out. You might be able to see the pencil marks for the hole.

Like the mod, will ponder on making something to make mine fit n seal, mine fits lovely and all holes line up with no seal at all.

But having stripped dash cleaned all vents clean the heater box out and fitted a new heater matrix to replace the rotten leaking one, kinda want it right and give it the best chance of heating working as well as it could..

Thought you said you could't get bolts in alignment?

I cant get them lined up with the new seal in place, without a seal fitted they line up lovely..

Yeah, they are big thick seals. A new one would take some squashing I reckon.

I have trimmed the top of it with the grinder

It is the length, cant get it near enough to the bulkhead, hence top holes are too far away and bottom holes are miles away..

Got to either continue to butch new one or make afresh one with an adapter like yours.

Cheers for your help

Cavey_P38 said:

I have trimmed the top of it with the grinder

It is the length, cant get it near enough to the bulkhead, hence top holes are too far away and bottom holes are miles away..

Got to either continue to butch new one or make afresh one with an adapter like yours.

Cheers for your help

Click to expand...

What have you trimmed with a grinder?
Mine had a bracket on the top with two slots in it. The slots pushed under two small bolts that screwed in to the top of the bulkhead. Then there was a bracket on the bottom that bolted to the footwell plate.

The new seal looks to be too big
but its correct
Its a struggle to squash it in place, and to fasten the x2 bolts holding it to the top of the bulk head
i found that if i pushed a long bolt in from behind from the foot well, the one nearest to the inner wing i had something to hold the heater box in place while i fastened the top bots

Brute force and swearing.

Trimmed the top part of seal a bit to give it a diet,


Will try the long bolts on the botttom tip before i attack the seal anymore.

Cheers Greyhair
The new seal looks to be too big
but its correct
Its a struggle to squash it in place, and to fasten the x2 bolts holding it to the top of the bulk head
i found that if i pushed a long bolt in from behind from the foot well, the one nearest to the inner wing i had something to hold the heater box in place while i fastened the top bots

Got it fitted this afternoon, put a long bolt in on the drivers side to the bottom of heater box, then removed washer bottle, so it didn't get damaged.
Then inserted a long bar underneath the heater box and against inner wing and levered up.
Managed to then get a short bolt in bottom passenger side and then swapped long bolt for a short one.

Then with one person levering up, one pulling top of heater towards the wing and one person to insert top bolts.

Result heater box fitted with the enormous new seal.

Got it plumbed up and fired the engine up and yes i now have heat. Got to mess about with a cable on the heater box that runs to the fan but happy so far.

Even got my front door seal fitted as well.
Just got new seats and anderson connectors and battery isolator to fit and a new wing cowl
then plate the chassis by the rear towbar mount.

so feel progress has been made, nothing like the other guys on rebuilds on this forum,hats off to you.
Did at least motivate me to finish some jobs on mine.

Glad it worked for you mate

yeah been proper stuck with it getting peed off with it then too much work meant hadn't got back to it.

Hate to be beaten by a problem,

So thanks for the support by all on here, as ever that is what the forum is about really. well that and the banter.

Cheers
Ian