Morris Minor Owners Club

For those who use their Minor(s) through winter, I was wondering how you all rate your heaters. Good, bad or as if it was never there?

I have to say I am impressed with mine, it's a Smiths' circular original to my Series II, absolutely standard.

On full blast after a while I have to actually turn it down because it gets too hot in the cabin! Seriously.

Anyway, what are yours all like?

Mine has the circular one too, and yes it IS very effective! Sometimes even the lowest setting is too much. My only complaint is that it's not very effective at clearing mist from the windscreen in cold weather.

Yes, the screen demist vents are useless, even when I made sure all the piping was plugged in and airtight.

What do you think demister pads and frantic wiping movements are for?

Well mine is a series 2 too, demisting is excellent and the heat comes through quicker than my modern peugeot! I am sure if I ever get the tops of the doors to fit better, then with fewer draughts it would be even better!

This is interesting, my Series II heater is also very effective and keeps the screen pretty clear too. Yet there still seems to be the odd criticism of heater performance from some Minor 1000 owners.

Didn't the Minor 1000 have that bulky unit in the cabin which looks as if it was an air con plant from an old American car?

I have no experience of that heater or that model but yes, it does seem to be a regular affliction of the 1000 judging by all the posts.

A nice feature of the Smiths' circular is that the speed is variable from full blast to a tick over and everything in between.

The later Minor 1000 heater has a permanent external air intake with ram effect. This is it's best and worst feature.

During sub zero days, the incoming air is just too cold to start with, hence the complaints about limited output. When it's not desperately cold, the fresh air really increases the ability to demist and the ram effect helps with cold air inlet in summer (provided you can turn off the hot water feed! - the cable operated water valves have a tendency to fail in numerous ways)

With a bit of heath robinson engineering you can (manually) disconnect and block the fresh air inlet turing the later 1000 heater into an internal-only heater. This dramatically increases cabin temperature on sub zero days, but to get fresh air inlet to reduce misting you are reliant on draughts / opening windows.

Best one I've had was an early minor 1000 which had a hybrid heater: Round heater in a different housing including variable amount of fresh air inlet. This inlet wasn't ram induced as it came from bulkhead crossmember, but it only takes a movement of a lever to open/close or vary the amount of external air coming to the heater.

The round smiths heater in my 54 is fairly good but not so good on the screen - the best one I ever had was a round gold aftermarket heater with hinged flaps on the front. Opening/closing the flaps changed the bias of where the air flow went and on a sub zero day it would easily defrost and demist the rear screen within a few miles!

I too have the circular heater, fantastic at keeping your feet warm but not so good on the demisting side. Like others I have checked the hoses and they are ok.

I have often thought about making some form of detachable circular piece of sheet metal to block the heater off at the bottom and force all the heat up through the demist vents.

Anyone tried this?

Richard

Having owned 3 Morris Minors and having both style heaters, I can say that the circular ones are brilliant! I gave the system a good flush through before the winter and I have never had any issues.

I agree with Ray's comments on the heaters with flaps, I had one on my '63 ex GPO van and that used to blast the heat out. The fug stirrer in my Series MM is better than nothing, which is what most Series MMs have got. The original fresh air heater in my Traveller pumped warm air out within a quarter of a mile until it expired, the replacement is not so good.
Probably a hotter stat in the MM and a good service on both would help

I think the lack of effectiveness in the demisting in all models is the Heath-Robinson lash up at the vents.
The bits at the tops of the pipes seem an OK shape but then they just point vaguely in the direction of the vents in the dash, it may be possible with a bit of judicious bending to get more air to the screen where it might actually do some good.

They can get too hot I open/close the window to regulate the temp. also demist quite effective if open an inch or so.
I also sealed the gap between the dash vent & nozzle so its not wasting any air behind the dash which improved things

I've always found the heater in my '69 Trav to be very effective but Minors I've had in the past fitted with the round heaters always seemed to be better - and yes, they had to be turned down as they got too hot.

NO heater at all in 1950 MM though - just have to wear a thicker jumper!

Wow! Yes, no problem with my Series II heater in my Traveller. Pull leaver out lovely on knees and feet, push leaver in de mists fairly quickly. I have the valve set to max. and leave it in that position all year round. I believe they are more efficient than the later "updated" versions ..... and less bother!!!

The Minor was designed to be driven whilst wearing an overcoat, trilby and driving gloves and smoking a fag with the windows tightly wound up

That would explain my nicotine interior! I thought the speedometer was gold, it turned silver when it was cleaned last year!