Heater flapper valves

[richthomas]

Right, first of many questions I'm sure. Learning about these cars fast!

In the quest to not have warm air pumping into the cabin all the time, I have found that the heater valves off the heat exchangers are a bit sticky and don't fully close over when the switch is set to off. If I crawl under the car and close them by hand they will stay closed, so for now I have just left them closed and not touched the heater. Copius soaking with WD40 doesn't seem to have helped, and it seems it is the valves sticking not the cables as they are slack when the valve it shut.

As a long term solution I am thinking of just replacing the flapper boxes, but I did notice that one of the 3 studs looks missing on the drivers side, and the remaining nuts are a bit rusty. The other side all seem to be there ( harder to see from under the car with it still on the ground) I am now worried that I have at least one sheared off stud and trying to undo the rest may result in more shearing off. I want to plus gas them all for a while which should help a lot, but getting hold of it seems difficult - Halfords no longer stock it. Has anyone else had any of these stud shear and if so what is a good fix?

I think if it is only one and if the others come of then I can live with that, the boxes seem to have a good seal and don't carry any load, but what happens if more come off when trying to undo?

 

[zwhitea]

Providing they are piles of rush, you maybe able to recover them by replacing the spring which closes the flap, I expect this has lost its strength.. Also because of the temperator these things get to WD40 will just evaporate in seconds... what I use is some spray on white silicon grease absolutely brilliant stuff... also great at keeping the accelerator linkage on the gearbox nice and free..

Adam

 

[dixhuit]

I just had the same problem fixed by my specialist. Drove all the way to Le Mans last year 40c full heat on in Cabin (fortunately its a Cab !) Common problem of springs on the flaps loosing their elasticity so to speak. This left warm air getting in all the time as flaps permanently open. New springs fitted and if I remember correctly around £5 and now the heating can be shut off. Bliss
Simon

 

[sentwistle]

hi,

you can definitely still get Plus Gas ans you are right it is much better than WD-40. I found it at my (not so) local Motor factors. Maybe frost's sell it online as well.

Enjoy,
Steve E.
Silver 3.2 coupe

 

[3.2_fordy]

Maplins sell it £4.79p for a 70g spray can

 

[nathan 1981 930 G50]

The other thing that can happen is some idiot in the past has "tie wrapped / cable tied" the cables to the handbrake cables etc etc. Take a look where the cables come out of the tunnel under the car and cut any that are really tight.
Fit new ones where the cable wants to be and make sure they are not very tight, don't force the cable to be somewhere it doesn't want to be.

I spent hours trying to work out why mine wouldn't work properly...