When I first started messing with getting !Oy
running one thing that I knew I would have to locate was a rear heater. I
always thought the rear heater was one of those cool things that Toyota had
put in the cruisers. I started looking on the web and finally found a set
of rear hard lines on E-Bay. I ordered them and though they were for a 1978
they fit perfectly. Next I found a rear heater that was advertised "as
is" and ordered that. When it arrived the box it was in was crushed.
When I inspected it the fan did not turn and the core header was split. Time
to get to work ...
Taking it apart
Fig. 1
As you can see in Fig.
1-2 the heater was in good overall condition. I pulled the unit apart
and started with the motor. The motor would turn but very slowly.
Fig. 2
I removed the fan blade by taking the small screw
holding it onto the shaft loose and laid it down on a piece of glass to help
determine which blades were bent. Just lay the fan on the glass and you can
see which blades do not touch the glass. Bend them down until all blades touch
equally. Next I took the two screws out of the top of the motor and pulled
the rotor out. See Fig. 3.
Fig. 3
There was evidence of coolant in the motor. I
guess when the core header split, it dowsed the motor pretty good ...
I cleaned out the rust then pulled the top of
the motor containing the brush assembly. The brushes were in good shape. See
Fig. 4.
Fig. 4
Fig. 4A
I used a nylon contact cleaning tool to clean
the shafts, commutator and brush faces. Next I oiled the bearing felts in
the top and bottom assemblies with 30 weigh motor oil. See Fig.
4A. After re-assembly the motor really moved some air!
Fixing the Core
When I first looked at the core (See
Fig. 5.) I decided that I would take it to a shop and have it fixed.
Both headers that collect the coolant were split almost all the way around!
I believe that this core was in a truck that was overheated to the point of
failure. Based on that thinking I thought I would attempt to seal it up enough
to see if any of the tubes had ruptured rendering it harder to repair.
Fig. 5
I'm no expert with soldering but I applied all
the things I knew. I heated the joints up till the old solder flowed out.
Then I used a Dremel tool with a stainless wire brush to clean the mating
surfaces. Next I applied a good acid flux and used a good solder to fill the
gaps back in. It took five attempts to find all the little leaks around the
header but it held. No leaking tubes! Plus I saved a lot of money ... See
Fig. 6 for the repair result.
Fig. 6
See Fig. 7 for
the repaired unit ready to put back into service ... and Fig.
8 for the powder coated unit ready to install!
