Any good Heater Box Rebuild write-ups?

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moparfreak77

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I just pulled out my heater box since the heater core was leaking and figured I would rebuild it when it was out. I ordered the gaskets from DMT so that should help. I was wondering if there is any good write-ups on the web on doing this?
 
Can you tell me where the brown ground wire connects to? Mine has 2 round connectors on it.
I am reassembling a car that I didn't take apart and some of this stuff is a voyage of discovery.
Thanks.
 
Mine also has 2 grounds on it. 1 is hooked up to a bolt behind the pass. side kick panel, the other one...I forgot where it came off of so I hooked it to a screw on the heater box.
 
Looks great!. Did you paint the exterior of the box as well? If you did what paint did you use?
 
That's one of the few things I did that I didn't photo-document when I did mine... but the job Preston did on his just blows my job away! Beautiful work! The only piece of advice I can offer is if your fresh air doors are sized stiff from rust, drill out the rivets BEFORE you try and loosen them up. If they're really gakked up and rusted, you'll break the heater box before the hinges budge. I had to work mine over in a vise before they co-operated.

And as for the ground wire, it probable attaches to the resistor pack since the heater box itself is a fiber composite and will not provide a ground for the circut.

Here's mine when I was done:
CarStuff069-vi.jpg
 
John's right, the fruity hinges can get pretty corroded. Mine are still a little on the stiff side.

I did end up painting mine which doesn't look correct but made mine look better than it did. By painting it you lose the greenish/black color with visible texture of the fiberglass strands. I painted mine with satin black Krylon Fusion paint. I had a couple of cracks that needed to be fixed too so painting it helped hide the repairs.

Sound like you guys have the wiring question figured out. I've attached a couple of images that may or may not be helpful. One of the ground lugs does attach to the box but like John said, I don't know what purpose it would serve since most everything is plastic - unless it's mostly just strain relief. The motor also gets grounded through the cowl studs and another strap in the engine compartment.

HeaterBoxIllus.jpg


motorresistor.jpg
 
I finally got it in and the only things I noticed are the controls are very tight, but I assume that is because of the new foam rubbing inside. Also, I noticed after everything was hooked up that the heater tubes didnt come through the firewall barely enough. The tubes have a rib on them and the clamp goes behind this rib, but I think 1 clamp might be on the rib, so I might see if I have some original clamps around.
I did come across this writeup....

http://www.moparmusclemagazine.com/...ymouth_valiant_heater_box_assembly/index.html
 
Hey Moparfreak77,

This link (Sandy's Garage) shows a 70 B-body resto, but I thought the text & photos might be of help to you (and other folks) for your heater box resto. See week# 135 for the driver's side air vent and week # 136 for the heater box. Hope this helps :-D

http://sandysgarage.com/wk136pix.html


John
 
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