Morris Minor Owners Club

As regards the export of Minors to cold country's and the carb.

The SU carb could be fitted with either or both the damper piston chamber heater or the inlet tract heater.

Below is a photo of the heater inlet tract heater:-
I will try and find a picture of the damper piston chamber heater.

As regards the heater - I am not aware of a larger capacity/more efficient heater being fitted but you could get various temps of thermostat, radiator muffs, radiator blinds and coolant system pre-heaters.

Standard UK cars didn't even have a heater for a long time, so fitting any sort for colder climes was a luxury.

There's a good little quote in the Workshop manual :

To fit a fresh-air type of heater to a car which has previously had no heating equipment, it is necessary to fit the components supplied in the heater kit, and the heater fresh air conversion, simultaneously.

Kind of stating the obvious really!
I imagine the extra heating capability was probably a radiator blind (or a sheet of something across the rad front).

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=image ... 80&bih=879

Photos 1, 2 & 4 show the heating element and fitted around the damper piston chamber.

philthehill wrote: ↑Mon Oct 14, 2019 6:43 pm https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=image ... 80&bih=879

Photos 1, 2 & 4 show the heating element and fitted around the damper piston chamber.

Interesting that your Photo 4 actually is being found by Google as being on a topic here in the forum in 2012, but when you follow the link, the image isn't there....

I don't believe the induction heater in the manifold was used for cold starting. It would take too long and too much battery power. I think it is used to battle frosting of the intake under certain condition, especially cold humid weather. I tested the thermo-switch and you need to put it in the freezer to close.

jaekl wrote: ↑Tue Oct 15, 2019 11:55 am I don't believe the induction heater in the manifold was used for cold starting. It would take too long and too much battery power. I think it is used to battle frosting of the intake under certain condition, especially cold humid weather. I tested the thermo-switch and you need to put it in the freezer to close.

If you look at the images philthehill linked to above and follow the connections through on the 2nd one, you end up here on the mini forum.
http://www.theminiforum.co.uk/forums/to ... rb-heater/
The 3rd post down states:

The intention is to speed the warm up of the the engine, and thereby reduce the emissions of CO when the ambient temperature is very low (well below zero). It was on the Swiss spec and the Canada spec minis.
When the choke is pulled out there is a switch on it that supplies powers to the 2 heating coils. One round the dash pot and one in the phenolic carb spacer.
The one in the spacer heats the mixture and the one around the dash heats the carb, thins the dashpot oil.

So perhaps it depends how pedantic we are in the definition of 'used for cold starting'.

The inlet heaters shown in my posting above can be classed as a Phenolic carb spacer and used in addition to the normal insulating spacer.

In addition to the above there were different suction chamber heaters for different locations i.e.

Heater suction chamber Pt No: AUC 1279.....North America. Latterly Pt No: AUC 1279 was replaced by Pt No: AUC 8092.

Heater suction chamber Pt No: AUC 8092....Finland, Denmark, Norway and Sweden.

A great shame but, as you say, nobody was hurt and a car can be mended. Some years ago I owned a Morris Traveller with that same flashing brakelight direction indicator system. Several times I almost got run into when indicating and had many other drivers sound their horns and shake fists at me They simply hadn't spotted the unfamiliar indicator. I added separate amber flashers to the rear and had no problem after that. Like trafficators, people simply don't notice these outdated lighting arrangements and they are best updated particularly if the car is used regularly. Generally I am keen to keep my cars to fairly original specification but this is one area where I happily make an exception

I see by 1979 there was some text on the heaters, which was absent twenty years earlier. I recall a brochure or two mentioning an induction heater in the manifold but nothing as to the benefits. It's a much more active system in 79. I'm fairly sure the manifold heater goes back farther than the dashpot heater and yet there is no text that I've found stating why it was added. I see our heaters as more of a long term, slow heater as opposed to a quick warm up. It would be nice to better define this mystery.

The induction heaters were used to overcome icing of the fuel mixture inside the inlet manifold which led to engine power reduction or stoppage. The fuel mixture gets very cold when it leaves the carb and can result in icing of the mixture (see graph in the link below).

Icing of the fuel mixture is a common problem even in the UK. The Webber 28/36DCD I had fitted on my A35 was terrible at icing up if the heated manifold did not have warm coolant flowing through it. To alleviate the possibility of fuel icing inside the Minor manifold the early manifolds had the exhaust heated plate between the cast iron exhaust and alloy inlet manifolds. Latterly the manifold were cast in one piece but the heating function was still retained.

Most after market inlet manifolds have the ability to heat the manifold with engine coolant to alleviate the problem of fuel icing.

Whilst the link below relates to piston engine aircraft the principles and descriptions can easily be transposed to other engines for example the 'A' Series.

https://www.easa.europa.eu/sites/defaul ... -final.pdf

Thanks, philthehill. I wasn't too far the mark. I've seen different cars frost up on the outside of in the carb/intake. Dampness was the common factor. Naturally, if the frost is on the outside, it's caused by he cold mixture passing through inside. The frost slows any heat transfer to take the chill off the mixture, so once the thermo-switch get frosty, the current start flowing to help warm the mixture. So as I said, it's not at start up, but a few miles down the road. The wire gauge suggest just a couple of amps like the heat from a couple of light bulbs.

Thank you everyone for all the kind words! I've started working on a spare wing that will need some prep before paint. Will absolutely keep you posted as I progress!

Regarding the discussion of cold climate additions, I do not have any inlet tract or damper piston chamber heaters. I've only really driven in cold condtions one time, still above freezing. Would be interesting to try some winter driving on a nice winter day with clear roads!

Lovely car and very enjoyable read .Hope the damage was not too bad and you are on the road soon