Heater! what heater?

Owned a series III 10 years back and remember is was damn cold to drive in cold weather!!

Just got a 1990 110 200TDi and hoped that things had improved (as far as heating goes)

Question: if it's got a heater then why doesnt it get hot for about 20 mins untill the engine has warmed up?

Do you think the heater is faulty or needs servicing? Or is this just the way things are?

Should I expect it to get warm straigh away?

Can you buy anything to improve the heating?

Make sure yer coolant level is OK an you ant got an airlock in the heater matrix, make sure the seals on the heater boxthing are OK, make sure the seals in the dash are OK an get a truck cab fitted, then they aren't brilliant but are acceptable.

Mine was a bit chilly when I first got it, I found that there was no thermostat fitted !

Having put one in it gets pretty hot quite quickly, 2-3 miles. Also found the cable (outer part) to the heater box was broken so the levers were not pushing the heater to the 'hot' position (fixed temporarily with a bit of gaffa tape around the cable.

Pretty happy with it now, also make sure that its pointing to floor rather than screen for maximunm heating.

DJ

I took out my matrix, flushed it in both directions with a pressure washer, soaked it in strong kettle descaler over night, and flushed in both directions again. You'll be surprised what comes out.
Make sure that when you refill it has no air locks (not as easy as it sounds) and you should get reasonable heat if all cables are adjusted correctly.

Lastly if you might want to flush the engine and radiator in the same way.
If you are going to change coolant then put some kettle descaler (local supermarket) in the old mix for a few days before flushing. It wont harm anything and the descaler works better when hot.

These heaters are never going to be brilliant but there's no reason to freeze. The standard landrover radiator is more than capable of cooling the largest of engines. I had a 5.7 litre chevy V8 fitted to my old SWB IIA using the existing radiator with no problems at all. The heater in this was also marginal so you could consider an electric fan or if you live somewhere really cold a radiator muff to keep the temperatures up. Just watch the guages to make sure you have not overdone it.