Morris Minor Owners Club

As part of my routine jobs I identified that the heater hoses were starting to look past their best, so during my 2 year coolant swap a good time to sort them out.

The one that goes to the top of the heater matrix, along with the wiring loom where it comes through the bulkhead and curls round towards the speedo on my car sit on top of the large circular hole under the dash that has an upturned edge on it.

So the hose and the loom are sitting on an edge, the heater hose had quite a visible cut in it and the wiring loom showing some marks but not cut or damaged - yet !.

Not sure if this is where they are supposed to run but it does seem the natural position for them. The heater hose leaking is one thing, the loom cutting through and shorting out could be a whole lot more exciting.

Could well be worth a check, I sliced a piece of spare heater along its length and slid it over the edge, so they are now resting on that.

I don't know if your model is different but my heater hoses run through bulkhead holes fitted with grommets. The wiring harness runs elsewhere.

The route of the heater (including later type heater) pipes is described in BMC wksp manual Section: SS.

Has your heater been changed for the Mini type heater? If so the heater pipe route may have been changed.

The wiring loom will run across the large hole with lip but is usually secured up and away from the lip.

Putting the split pipe on and over the hole lip is a good move.

Totally rewriting this as I got onto a red herring from Les' comment about

les wrote:I don't know if your model is different but my heater hoses run through bulkhead holes fitted with grommets. The wiring harness runs elsewhere.

You're referring to the layout inside the car under the dash.
Here's a photo of my '55, bearing in mind that I have an after-market Tudor heater hence the grey washing machine hoses connecting to the demisters! But you'll note a lack of grommets coming through the bulkhead - something that is kept under review!

Never thought of looking in that manual, I will call it up in a while.

I have the standard later type minor heater (1966).

The grommets are on the bulkhead, it is that upturned lip as in the last photo, the top most hose comes in and curls onto the matrix stub and sits nicely on that edge.

The wiring loom is the same, although I am sure it could be coaxed to sit else where, I would have certainly clipped it up or over and not left it sitting on that edge. I don't know why I have never noticed before - and I have had the heater right out a couple of years back.

I have put right so many electrical bodges and poor workmanship on the car, 80% of the wiring was put back without any grommets, poorly made connections, wires twisted together - it went on and being an electrical engineer it is one thing that I should get right.

In time the loom could do with replacing, that's the time to sort it right out but I have a Cobra immobiliser grafted into it so would look for some additional wiring to be incorporated in, or I make the whole loom myself from scratch, a nice interesting little job.

For the time being the piece of heater hose is a nice protector, it had made quite a cut in the heater hose. Not why I replaced them, they were going horrible on the ends connecting to the engine.