Chris' Clan New dash

ChrisBenoy · Post by **ChrisBenoy** » Thu Apr 17, 2008 10:05 pm

Well, I've been lurking around here for a while now, thought it was probably about time that I made a little post here regarding my shiny little car.

Ok for a start I might as well write out the spec. (as far as i'm aware =p) Its a 1984 Irish clan, currently running a smokey old 875 but have a 998 on the way... has a Weber 28/36, sport exhaust and a nice tidy interior. Oh and of course a working (and loud) CD player. As you can see it is yellow and black, few little chips in the paintwork but it generally looks pretty respectable. As for the rest then well, picture says a thousand words and all that.

Well here it(she) is...

ChrisBenoy · Post by **ChrisBenoy** » Thu Apr 17, 2008 11:10 pm

Eric - A correct style sticker for the back of my clan would be brilliant =)

Grahame - From a magazine article I have on my car it sounds like it was one of the factory demonstrators, origonally a two tone grey/grey a colour that never made it into production(no prizes for guessing why). However it shares the TIJ part of the registration with the white/red irish clan which was the one used as I think as a pace car or something at a race in ireland, picture below.

As for insurance, you would have to ask my dad =p but he has had a quote and I believe it was a touch above £1000 not to bad considering its a first car and despite a small engine, is quite sporty.

ChrisBenoy · Post by **ChrisBenoy** » Fri Apr 18, 2008 10:17 am

Ah its a shame you don't have the restoration photos anymore but I have the carsport article (courtesy of the nice people at the clan club

) and I have to say, considering I believe it was a barn find in pretty poor condition its been done really well. Ok its not going to win any awards but it was made to be driven not to be looked at.

ChrisBenoy · Post by **ChrisBenoy** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 12:04 am

After hearing some horror stories about getting the engine out of a clan... have just done it, well more accurately, my dad did it while I took photos and prodded things

there were a couple of snags but it wasn't overly difficult, having done it once I think it would be a lot easier to do it again.

But the good news is we have a borrowed engine that will be going in pretty much whenever we have time to put it in, that should run happily enough and once thats done I can work on getting it ready for the MOT by fixing the things that are not working, like the headlights. Except I think the headlights probably are working, I just cant find the switch to turn them on...

But anyway its progress, will put up a few pictures tomorrow when I get the time to do so. In between a driving lesson, and making a CD player mount for my car. Oh yes and some university work =p

ChrisBenoy · Post by **ChrisBenoy** » Thu Oct 16, 2008 3:33 pm

I know its hard to believe, after seeing all the imps in the family leak and my dads G15 is essentially a collander when it rains =p

Get a bit of water in if you open the door after its gotten wet, bit of water must collect on top of the door that waits till it is opened to seep in but its only a little so I can live with that.

Might need to invest in a little rain-x antifog over the winter, the heater does its job but it takes a while.

ChrisBenoy · Post by **ChrisBenoy** » Wed Oct 29, 2008 2:58 pm

Having a fair few distributor problems at the moment, the one that was in it stopped working, fairly randomly, luckily while I was next to my garage, tried the other distributor that was on it before which was working fine until it was taken off, and suddenly that one wasn't working either.

Tested all the other electrical components, all fine so the lack of spark must be distribtor related, so whip a completly known working one off my dads stiletto and it runs

... so OK must be that the other two were dodgey, try about 3 others, including testing the wires inside the distributors and changing points and condensors and still cant find any that will work.

Any ideas why a car would work perfectly fine on one and completly refuse to fire with any others, even 2 that had previously worked perfectly fine?

ImpManiac · Post by **ImpManiac** » Wed Oct 29, 2008 4:46 pm

What condition are the distributors in? Are they old-ish and have they been stored? The condensors might be knackered. This is a silly question but did you set them all up - points gap, static/ dynamic timing, etc. - the same each time?

It could be something as ornary as a broken conductor INSIDE the insulation of one of the wires connecting the distributor to other things.

IM

ChrisBenoy · Post by **ChrisBenoy** » Wed Oct 29, 2008 4:55 pm

Yeah sorted out the timing before trying to fire it up.

Most of them are in good condition. 3 of them had electronic ignition modules on and one other one has had the points and condenser replaced while I was trying to work out what was wrong, so its a bit of a mystery, unless i'm incredably unlucky and there is a minor problem with all of them but i've tried a brand new aldon ignitor on several different distributors.

I suppose the next test is to try some of the distributors on one of the other imp based cars we have kicking about and see if they work. And if they do then i'll have to work out what my car doesn't like about them.

Personally I think my car has an attitude problem and just doesn't want to work.

ChrisBenoy · Post by **ChrisBenoy** » Wed Oct 29, 2008 5:13 pm

We thought of that previously when we were having problems with a coil as some clan crusaders had them but the ignition wire is giving 12 volts with the ignition on and the wiring diagram we have for my clan doesn't show a ballast resistor.

As far as we can tell, we are getting 12 volts from the ignition to the coil, we know the coil works and we have tried two different distributor caps so the only variable as far as we can tell is the distributors and the one from the stiletto works but the rest dont, its all a bit odd, as far as I was aware all that can go wrong with a distributor is points, condenser or earth wire and we have tested all that, ah well, will stick with the stiletto dizzy for now.

ChrisBenoy · Post by **ChrisBenoy** » Sat Mar 28, 2009 9:13 pm

It's not that rough on the car really, as long as you don't do full throttle starts. In modern cars its a bit tough because they do alot in first gear but in an Imp you'll be half way through the second gear rev range so its not too much of a strain.

Enter one sometime, its great fun and the events are crying out to be done in an Imp

ChrisBenoy · Post by **ChrisBenoy** » Sat Mar 28, 2009 9:32 pm

You need to be a member of one of the invited motor clubs (BTRDA is free for the first year if your under 25 I think, they might be invited would have to check the regs) and a road legal taxed/MOT'd car. Appart from that its about £25/30 entry.

ImpManiac · Post by **ImpManiac** » Sat Mar 28, 2009 10:34 pm

ChrisBenoy wrote:Is the Maniac imp coming out to play any time?

Perchance, yes. Now that I have found a way to get my roof fixed for not much dosh.

Then I have to get the carbs right so that it is reliable and then, I'll be out to play.

IM

ChrisBenoy · Post by **ChrisBenoy** » Mon Jun 22, 2009 3:52 pm

Hi guys, i've been doing a little bit of cosmetic work on the clan, (Imp club members who attented the Castle combe classic and sports car day might have a clue why

) and i've been thinking a little bit about colour schemes but I can't quite make up my mind how i'm going to paint it yet, I have 3 options really...

Option 1, Pretty much how it was already, just all fixed and tidied up.

Option 2, Back to how the Irish clans were painted in the first place, with two tone a colour over black.

Option 3, with the black paint stripped off the spoiler and edges and painted the same colour as the body.

Anyone have any opinions? I keep flitting between what I want to do to it in my mind. Just to make it more obvious what I mean with the three options i've rather crudely photoshopped an attachment of them.

Lotus-e-Clan · Post by **Lotus-e-Clan** » Tue Jun 23, 2009 1:05 pm

The original paint scheme made sense of the Irish rear bumper design linking the horizontal side wrap of the rear bumper with the side wrap on the front bumper.

Without the two tone paint scheme the rear bumper wrap around looks a little awkward in my eyes as the horizontal line jars against one of the very nice features of the original design ie the "upsweep" to the rear panel from lower rear wheel arch.

This Clan paint scheme emphasizes the nice rear up sweep I'm talking about:

If it were mine I'd remove the rear bumper wraparound. If you look at Erics hillclimb Clan he has an Irish looking front but a crusader rear which is the probably best of both worlds.

If I had to stay with rear bumper wraparound then I think a paint line of some sort connecting the front and rear wraparound (not necessarily same as the Irish original) would be better on the eye in side views. You could experiment with sticky tape before committing to a given line and perhaps it wouldn't have to be entirely horizontal from front to back (it could dip somewhere between for example) .

ChrisBenoy · Post by **ChrisBenoy** » Sat Nov 21, 2009 4:43 pm

Well.. I've been a bit busy recently, but haven't updated this post for some time so lets see, what jobs have I done that I can think of....

* Replaced bonnet pull cable as the old one had a snapped handle, happened at national but I didn't get around to fixing it, wont bother with photos, you all know what a pull cable looks like.

* Repainted the front of the car, it needed doing, was looking a bit tatty at national the wicked welsh so thats been resprayed, isn't perfect but will do over the winter until I decide on the colour scheme. Will post photos of this tomorrow when there is more daylight, just the rear end to do now, has been a bit tatty since Castle Combe in july and I don't think my quick spray at national, nor strategic placing of rally plaque fooled anyone.

And most recently I had a hose split and the cooling system has been a bit marginal recently. The heater has never really worked properly so it seemed like a full stripdown, clean and rebuild was a good idea.

All taken appart...

Little bit dirty

Rubber Gaiter has split, that won't have helped airflow (Oops. badly cropped photo

)

Rad isn't exactly looking clean, can't have helped matters.

Spent yesterday and today cleaning all the parts and repainting them, I'll take some photos when I have daylight and its all bolted back together again.

Flushed the heater and hoses with the gravity method (bucket of hot water, funnel, heater hose extension and a ladder) got some pretty nasty looking water comming out of both sides so that might explain the heater not working all that well.

Will be putting it all back together and on the car tomorrow so that should all be good. Although I can see a set of silicone hoses and a high efficency rad in my cars future.

ChrisBenoy · Post by **ChrisBenoy** » Mon Nov 23, 2009 3:25 pm

Right, got more or less all the cooling sorted I think...

Rad cowling back together

Cleaned the engine bay while everything was out, might not be quite up to concours standards but its as clean as my engine bay has been.

All back in place. Including, if you look in the bottom corner, plumbing in the water heated manifold.

And as mentioned before, front end all fixed and painted up. (Also unseized the headlight motor that had my headlights stuck up at wicked welsh.) Going to be painting the bottom section of the spoiler black again as I think that looked better than it does now.

Now looking forward to just driving the bl***y thing

ChrisBenoy · Post by **ChrisBenoy** » Mon Dec 14, 2009 2:27 pm

Got a couple of little toys for my car, a 12v heater, ok so it doesn't turn the car into a sauna but it does provide some decent extra heat and should be good for de-misting the screen. for £7.50 at Maplin you can't really complain.

Also got myself a nice digital dashboard, I was fed up of my temp gauge telling me nothing useful whatsoever and decided I wanted something more accurate, I looked into getting a good aftermarket temp gauge and decided it would cost about £50, then I looked up one of these on ebay and got it for £73 so not bad there. Gives me a speedo (once I get the sensor sorted) revs, inside car temp, engine temp. Has indicator and headlamp warning lights which I havent wired up yet and it has two LEDS that flash at preset engine temp or revs as a warning light and shift light.

Currently the only two gauges that are accurate on my car are the rev counter and the speedo and the speedo is hidden behind the steering wheel on an irish clan so this seems pretty awesome for the job.

Lotus-e-Clan · Post by **Lotus-e-Clan** » Tue Dec 15, 2009 5:29 pm

Can vouch for the effectiveness of an electric fan heater in a Clan. You get the heat straightaway so don't have to wait for the engine to get warm.

I used mine for the first time today (RING 150w version off ebay shops) and I'd say the heat output is almost equivalent to the water heater in my car....not that my heater is any good mind (probably scaled-up after nearly 40 years in service.). 150w doesn't sound like much (and it's not) but in the confined Clan cabin the recirculated air soon has the chill taken from it.

The only potential problem is that it draws about 10-12 amps and this is in addition to the 30-35 amps electrical load I get when it's dark cold and wet.

Also the purple cigar lighter cable looks to be rated at only 8-10 amps so the cable may get a little warm during use...

And finally, my alternator is only a 45 amp jobbie so the additional 12 amps means the total load is on the edge....so far so good though!

ChrisBenoy · Post by **ChrisBenoy** » Wed Dec 16, 2009 1:24 pm

I can now confirm that Falkein Ziex Ze-912 tyres are *very* good in the wet and snow, having just tackled the worst conditions i've faced this year they performed brilliantly. No loss of traction at any time, a nice feeling that there is grip there. Obviously the braking distances were incresed however the car still stopped well, I'm happy with them.

The car in general performed well actually. my digi speedo told me it was about 3 degrees outside when I got in the car and the heater (just the car heater, not got the 12v one hooked up properly yet) quickly got it up to about 13-15 degrees, started easily first time, no problems with cold running or anything. Also all still water tight, no leaks. Really nice.

ImpManiac · Post by **ImpManiac** » Tue May 25, 2010 4:56 pm

Nice to hear an update on your Clan, Chris.

Glad it passed its MOT.

Paul

Lotus-e-Clan · Post by **Lotus-e-Clan** » Mon Aug 02, 2010 10:23 pm

Chris

I see you've given-in at last and fitted a front rad!

I'm very interested in hearing about your distributor problem. Have you any clue as to what went wrong?

Just by coincidence I'm into ignition tweaking at the mo. I've got hold of a range of 26 different springs for a 25D dizzy so I can reproduce my 43D competition spec advance curve and use the 25D vacuum advance for the road trip down to the National. Obviously vacuum advance greatly improves part-throttle running during road use. A bonus side effect is that the 1040 runs cooler during "motorway cruise" and part throttle type driving using the vacuum advance.

Anyway, although I was aware of the issue, it's opened my eyes to just how much the ignition timing can contribute to cooling or overheating

So now I'm wondering if your pending ignition problem had been contributing to your overheating? If the ignition has been too retarded at part throttle motorway cruise then it would contribute to overheating, especially noticeable if your particular rear rad cooling was marginal too.

Of course any front rad cooling surplus would be able to deal with the extra heat from retarded part throttle ignition so you may not think it's worth looking into. But if you are running a sport cam then it's worth checking with a strope that the new dizzy curve you have is to the correct spec before you (possibly) damage the engine on a long run (even though it's running cooler).

BTW. Where have you cut the boot floor for ventilation? I can't get my bearings on the photo...where do the pipes enter the boot area?

ChrisBenoy · Post by **ChrisBenoy** » Mon Aug 02, 2010 10:40 pm

I had been having a few ignition timing issues at one point but since I started having cooling issues that was one of the first things that I checked. I recently rebuilt a knackered sport dizzy into a good 25d body and have been using this fine for a while, backed off ever so slightly from the point of pinking so thats not bad.

I'll have to photograph the boot area when I take the ducting out, The pipes come up through a small hole between the front wishbones, slightly offset to the left of the car (because thats where the rad inlets are) which was pretty much the only (and least structural bit) I could find to run them through. The ventilation hole from the ducting is on the thin bit of boot floor closer to the front of the car before it steps up into the big thick bit that the suspension mounts to (sort of spare wheel well area). I don't think i've lost any strength with what i've done but I may re-enforce around the cut outs anyway for piece of mind.

I suppose you could just have a look at national in less than a weeks time

Lotus-e-Clan · Post by **Lotus-e-Clan** » Mon Aug 02, 2010 11:07 pm

Yep good point...I'll have a look at the National.

I've done a couple of cooling mods since Curborough to compensate for loss of air flow under the car after fitting the front spoiler... if you let me look at yours, you can look at mine...

ImpManiac · Post by **ImpManiac** » Tue Aug 03, 2010 11:03 am

I'm looking forward to seeing both of your Clans at Bridgwater, Chris and Peter.

IM

long_gone_John · Post by **long_gone_John** » Thu Aug 05, 2010 4:18 pm

..No No! Reversair[MiNi fan] was the way I did it on 884KOE

... the Oil Cooler was on the same side as the Rad too!!

Hmmm... A LOT of Heat!!

Well... just a thought

LGJ

ImpManiac · Post by **ImpManiac** » Mon Aug 09, 2010 11:27 pm

ChrisBenoy wrote:Also apologies to Paul (Known in these parts as ImpManiac) who happened to be traveling as a passenger at the time of the breakdown who took it very well and kept me positive when things were looking a little bit bleak.

Chris, I am glad you got it sorted.

I was just sad for you that your car, which is magnificent, by the way

and will be again, once your 998 Sport is fixed, broke down in such an unfortunate way. To lose a great engine to a piece of pipe breaking away like that...

I am glad that I helped keep spirits up.

See you in early September!

IM

ImpManiac · Post by **ImpManiac** » Mon Sep 20, 2010 12:15 pm

Great work, Chris. I'm glad it's coming along nicely.

IM

ImpManiac · Post by **ImpManiac** » Wed Sep 22, 2010 6:04 pm

Nice work, Chris! But exposed spark plug holes?

Noddy - the blue HG will be a water jacket gasket. I think Chris' engine uses Wills rings.

IM

Dave ' Linwood ' Lane · Wed Sep 22, 2010 6:06 pm

ImpManiac wrote: Noddy - the blue HG will be a water jacket gasket. I think Chris' engine uses Wills rings.

IM

Never seen a tahiti blue gasket before , tre pretty

ChrisBenoy · Post by **ChrisBenoy** » Wed Sep 22, 2010 6:08 pm

If anything was going to go bang as a result it would have done so already, while I agree I should have put plugs in there nothing went down there, as a first engine top end rebuild i'll add that to a list of things learned as a result.

Thats just an outline gasket Noddy, as far as i'm aware they are all blue at the moment? matches my silicone hoses either way.

ImpManiac · Post by **ImpManiac** » Wed Sep 22, 2010 6:10 pm

Noddy wrote:Never seen a tahiti blue gasket before , tre pretty

Yep!

IM

ImpManiac · Post by **ImpManiac** » Thu Nov 25, 2010 4:03 pm

Sorry to hear your tale, Chris.

I hope you have it all back together again soon. It's just a pity that these idiots cause honest folk unnecessary effort and expense.

IM

pimpdriver · Post by **pimpdriver** » Thu Nov 25, 2010 6:00 pm

Chris
As already stated, Metro door handles. Try and get the early ones, they are alloy instead of plastic and are a lot stronger. Fiting them is fun tho' i think they were the first things fitted to the door, with the frame and glass fitted after.

Eric

MiniChris · Post by **MiniChris** » Fri Nov 26, 2010 11:50 am

I think Metro door handles are sided, if I remember correctly the inside isn't completely hollow but has a small lip for mechanism to attach to. Might be wrong though, 4 years since I put them on my Mini.

ChrisBenoy · Post by **ChrisBenoy** » Fri May 27, 2011 2:07 pm

Just got the Clan its MOT for the next year more or less sailed through although the tyres are disapearing at a slightly alarming rate, but thinking about it they have had a hard life. The MOT tester commented on how nice and clean it was inside and out which is always nice, I have spent a lot of time keeping it tidy recently. I think it does look pretty good considering its done 12,000 miles, 8 autosolos and been out on track twice since its last MOT so its hardly a pampered garage car.

998 has just gone back in after recieving some work and is starting and running nicely although it is much more tappety than i'd have liked but nevermind, as long as it stays in one piece i'll have to put up with a noise you can only hear from the engine bay not inside the car (well i'd hope not after the work I went to soundproofing the clan recently)

Got a few jobs planned for it, mainly centred around just making it a bit nicer looking, maybe give it a bit of a respray this summer when I have some time as it handles and brakes well and is now pretty quick, I think performance wise its pretty much where I want it. Not much more I can do without making it less useable as an everyday car.

bazzateer · Post by **bazzateer** » Fri Sep 09, 2011 8:04 pm

Looking good Chris.

impmann · Post by **impmann** » Sat Sep 10, 2011 9:09 am

Much better, Chris...

I know the car is GRP, but black sills always make me think of dodgy welding to get a car through an MOT!!

ChrisBenoy · Post by **ChrisBenoy** » Sat Sep 10, 2011 9:56 am

The paint was all bobly, made it look a little as if it has been undersealed

bazzateer · Post by **bazzateer** » Sat Sep 10, 2011 11:31 am

Are you going to do the bit under the front bumper yellow as well? I think it would look more 'balanced' if you did, like in the avatar.

ChrisBenoy · Post by **ChrisBenoy** » Sat Sep 10, 2011 11:43 am

I think I may do at some point, it has been all yellow in the past and I quite liked it. I have however run out of paint and its pretty expensive and doesn't actually match so it will need a full respray at some point when I have the time/money/skill to do it.

Interior is next on the list, i've got a set of MX5 seats to fit to it soon which should be comfy.

cov_climax · Post by **cov_climax** » Sat Sep 10, 2011 3:52 pm

Looks better than the black Chris, are you keeping it yellow long term then?

surprised you didn't reccoment type 49 / gold leaf colours peter

:

ChrisBenoy · Post by **ChrisBenoy** » Sat Sep 10, 2011 4:19 pm

Yeah I think i'm going to stick with yellow although I may go brighter when the times comes to completly spray the car, but for now its still my daily driver so making it too tidy is pointless as it will only get dirty/scraped.

Incidently I did consider changing the sill colour to white but I thought yellow and white might look a bit weird.

bazzateer · Post by **bazzateer** » Sat Sep 10, 2011 5:03 pm

Ford Daytona Yellow is a nice bright yellow.

ChrisBenoy · Post by **ChrisBenoy** » Tue Nov 22, 2011 1:40 pm

Been busy fitting some new seats over the last couple of weeks. I've got the clan pretty mechanically sorted these days so i've started focusing on the interior and exterior to make it a nicer looking car in general. After a discussion with some other irish clan owners at national and the Clan 40 event I saw a couple of clans with different styles of seats in them. I'd already heard that Mazda MX5 seats fitted in so I had a look around on ebay and eventually managed to get a pair of MK 1 seats for £50 that were local enough for me to collect.

Found with my passenger seat out that they just about fit (a couple of mm either side and they need to be spaced up a bit in order to allow the runners to work correctly.

As you can see compared to my previous cobra cub seats these give a lot more back and neck support in case of an accident and are generally more comfortable.

They recline almost all the way back and can tip far enough forward for me to easily be able to store things behind the seats as I normally do. They even have space for headrest speakers although i'm undecided if having such an item would be good or just a bit gimmicky.

I'm unsure how good they will be for taller people as the seat bases are slightly higher than they have been previously, but at 5ft 10 I have several inches of headroom clear of the roof and can get considerably more with the seat reclined just slightly further back.

ChrisBenoy · Post by **ChrisBenoy** » Tue Nov 22, 2011 2:57 pm

You'll have to have a sit in it next time its at a area centre meeting, It may or may not be a problem. I've just sat in it with a helmet on and thats fine, so you might perhaps have to recline it a click or two more than someone shorter but i'd be suprised if you didn't fit in it actually.

ChrisBenoy · Post by **ChrisBenoy** » Tue Nov 22, 2011 4:45 pm

Well I don't like to discriminate when it comes to who can be a passenger in my car

Peter - I'm not sure how well they would fit into a crusader, without the extra 2" of height the irish clan gives I think it would leave the top of the seat pretty close to the roof. It is also base mounted which isn't as much of a problem in mine, i'm not sure if its standard but thats how my old seats were fitted anyway. When it came to fitting the MX5 seats I put an extra 6 layers of fibreglass in to strengthen the area further and tied them in to the inner sills and central tunnel area which should leave them very strong. I'd have thought that would be pretty difficult to fit to a crusader given that you would have to make some bracketry to give you the 90* you needed to mount them to the standard crusader fixing points.

As for the weight, its hard to say really I didn't weigh them before I fitted them, they were obviously a fair bit heavier than the cobra cubs that they replaced but i'd estimate they were less than 10kg, certainly no where near the weight of some modern heated, electrical reclining seats in some modern cars.

There isn't that much choice in seats because of how narrow the clan is. I had considered some of these before I settled on the MX5 seats as they look comfy and supportive while being designed to be slim http://www.sportseats4u.co.uk/brand/cor ... d_852.html They are however pretty damn expensive.

I'd be happy to unbolt my passenger seat at an event some time if you wanted to trial fit one.

ChrisBenoy · Post by **ChrisBenoy** » Tue Nov 29, 2011 4:53 pm

I decided to join in with the playing with heaters game today, having just changed the heater hoses I was bleeding the system anyway so I got all the air out with the bypass hose clamped and I liked how hot the hoses got like this so i've completly blocked the bypass hose off now. (The heater control valve has already been removed as I disliked it)

So now with hot water flowing rapidly around the heater circuit my attention turned to airflow. I removed my heater blower a very long time ago as it stopped working and I couldn't be bothered to investigate and since I was never happy with having the ducting right through the middle of the luggage carrying area I removed most of this too. I left a bit sticking out into my under bonnet area that pointed to the area under the headlight. This has a vent on the front for airflow, or so I thought. Having looked under the headlight I found that there was a plank of wood blocking this area so no ram air would be getting in. I'm not sure if its standard on the drivers side of an irish clan or not but either way its there.

I'm not sure where the heater got its air from now as its always worked well while on the move (but obviously given very little heat while stopped) anyway, i've mounted a heater blower onto the piece of wood and cut all the holes required to allow ram air to flow through into the ducting. At this point I had a bit of an issue as the ducting was too large to fit through the gap I had between heater and fan so a bit of playing around was required. I put a cut down piece of standard imp duct either side and in the middle I have three lengths of hoover hose that just about squeeze into the diameter of the imp ducting, so I ran these three through the small gap and then connected them inside the ducting, its not a perfect solution but it should still flow a pretty good amount of air through it and it keeps the duct out of the luggage carrying area.

I didn't take any photos today as by the time I finished it was getting pretty dark and wet but i'll snap some tomorrow as I do a final bolting together of all the bits and wire up the blower. Then i'll test it and hopefully have better heat and windscreen de-misting. Between this and the suprisingly effective 12v heater I run it winter my car should be a nice winterproof place to be.

skamanfrank · Post by **skamanfrank** » Tue Nov 29, 2011 6:04 pm

Yeah, I guess with a closed heater valve, and bypass, and cold engine with closed stat... there could be problems!

Can't remember if I've got a heater valve, might have taken it out years ago for all I know, better check. I guess you could always restrict the flow in the bypass, instead of clamping it off altogether?

skamanfrank · Post by **skamanfrank** » Tue Nov 29, 2011 9:22 pm

I thought of those from CBS as well Chris, but just don't feel like paying £12 for it tbh! haha

ChrisBenoy · Post by **ChrisBenoy** » Tue Nov 29, 2011 9:30 pm

Me either, thats why I used the free heater control valve that I had liberated from the heater circuit.