Morris Minor Owners Club

you know that valve control you have for your heater - the one you pull out? Well i have never been able to get mine to stay out... when you pull it it doesn't stay there, it goes back in.

Can anyone explain what this means? I can't actually figure out what it does because my heater seems to work fine with it in. Does this mean that my heater is always on or supposidly always off or what?

cheers all

Better to leave the valve open all the time anyway - so just ignore the cable. They are often rusted up solid through years of not-being-used.

It should be a solid cable, and the valve should stay in the position you leave it.

Chances are the valve is stuck, so when you pull the cable the arm bends, when you let go of the cable it springs back to normal shape. Try looking under the bonnet when pulling it to be sure.

If you're feeling brave, you can use a medium sized hitting stick to free the valve, and keep your fingers crossed it doesn't break a seal of gunge and corrosion that then leaves you with a leak

The ccntrol should be pushed in for heat, pulled out for no heat.

It should stay where you put it. If the valve at the back of the cylinder head is jammed as Packedup says, that would explain why the control knob springs back.

If you don't want heat on all the time, you can buy a new water valve from many of the normal Minor parts people. However, the new valve is bigger than the original, and unless you grind it down a bit, it fouls the rocker cover, and means you can't get the cover off without loosening the heater valve nuts each time. (As I found out to my cost and bruised knuckles).

You can also get a good second hand control cable if it is the cable that's US.

A lot of people don't bother, and leave the heater on all the time, and use the air flow control on the black box to close all the flaps when they don't want hot air, but I find that's still too hot in summer.

You may also find that closing the heater water valve will reveal overheating problems elsewhere. (I ended up needing a new radiator). The flow through the heater matrix was just enough to keep things under control, but without it, there weren't enough open tubes in the old radiator to do an adequate cooling job. But that's another story.

Thanks all: with your info I now know that my heater is stuck on permanently. Which in a convertible, coming up to winter, is no bad thing