Early heater control arrangement

Pete Whitstone

Pete Whitstone

True Classic
I've never had an early car, but I've seen pictures of some dashboards that have 3 horizontal sliders - I believe these are the AC cars but I might be wrong about that. So one slider would control the hot/cold, one would presumably control the dash/floor/windshield air direction. What does that 3rd one control? Recirculate or something?

Pete
 
Pete Whitstone said:
I've never had an early car, but I've seen pictures of some dashboards that have 3 horizontal sliders - I believe these are the AC cars but I might be wrong about that. So one slider would control the hot/cold, one would presumably control the dash/floor/windshield air direction. What does that 3rd one control? Recirculate or something?

Pete
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You are correct on the 3 levers Pete. Not sure what you call early? Maybe you are thinking Fiat vs Bertone years?

I will add some detail, because I was just looking at an "early" AC console I have on hand yesterday. By "early cars" I think of the 74-78 model years. They had 3 vertical sliders on the console. One was for the heater valve, one for vents or defroster and one for the outside air damper. There were two rotary switches to control the AC temp and fan speed. The rotary switched were bracketing the vertical sliders. Pretty sure this console came out of a 77X that was "outstanding in its field" near Colby, KS. The compressor was mounted on the transmission side using that crazy water pump really long shaft to drive the compressor.
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In 79+ "late" cars, those same 3 levers were made horizontal. Pretty sure the 79+ AC cars only had one horizontal lever below the buttons. Maybe it was still for outside air? I have never had an AC X that ran. Early or late.
 
Most non AC Fiats, including 124s have three sliders. One operates the heater valve which controls the temp of the incoming air. One controls the fresh air cowl flap which lets outside air into the heater and one controls the flap at the bottom of the heater box, open most air goes to your feet, closed most air goes to the defroster vent.
 
Spider and X non AC heater boxes are pretty basic. On my X I just reach down and move the floor/defroster flap by hand. For the heater valve I have a discreet universal choke cable. The only visible lever is one for the cowl flap, I have no fan so when I want heat I just open the cowl flap, that flap passes a lot of air when the car is moving. My car is a fair weather ride so this crude system works fine for me.
 
Pete Whitstone said:
Thanks guys! Trying to figure out how to deal with HVAC, or at least HV, on the 037 project car.
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If you need an early AC console, you know where to find one. :)

UPDATE: Ooops, I bet an X console will not work for your project.
 
JimD said:
If you need an early AC console, you know where to find one. :)

UPDATE: Ooops, I bet an X console will not work for your project.
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No, I'm trying to emulate the 037 console look.

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It's very early in the going, but here is where it is at.

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One slider on the right (more towards the middle) and the fan switch to the right of it. Room for two more sliders on the left.
 
It looks like the went to the parts bin for some OE parts, I don’t know how much access you have to a Fiat/Lancia junkyard but I would bet the controls solution they used would be found somewhere in there.

I would like to modify a AC heater box to manual, it basically has the same things to control and get rid of the dicey vacuum system. No reason it shouldn’t work, you would just need to create mountings for the ends of the cables.

On the AC controls for a late X, the one cable controlled element was the heater valve, the flap doors were controlled by vacuum, much like the OE ScorpiCarlo.
 
kmead said:
It looks like the went to the parts bin for some OE parts, I don’t know how much access you have to a Fiat/Lancia junkyard but I would bet the controls solution they used would be found somewhere in there.

I would like to modify a AC heater box to manual, it basically has the same things to control and get rid of the dicey vacuum system. No reason it shouldn’t work, you would just need to create mountings for the ends of the cables.

On the AC controls for a late X, the one cable controlled element was the heater valve, the flap doors were controlled by vacuum, much like the OE ScorpiCarlo.
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That's pretty much the plan, Karl. I have taken a good look at both the Scorpion box and an X1/9 box. I was originally attracted to the X1/9 box because I thought it would be smaller, and it is, marginally. But the cold air intake and shape of the metal structure under the dash make it so that the space savings of the somewhat smaller X1/9 box would not be realized, and it would be a pain to convert the air intakes, etc. So I am looking at rehabbing the Scorpion box and re-installing it, but converting it to full manual, as you suggest. This should be fun. Maybe.

Pete
 
Pete, If you find a way please let us now.
Thanks!

Pete Whitstone said:
That's pretty much the plan, Karl. I have taken a good look at both the Scorpion box and an X1/9 box. I was originally attracted to the X1/9 box because I thought it would be smaller, and it is, marginally. But the cold air intake and shape of the metal structure under the dash make it so that the space savings of the somewhat smaller X1/9 box would not be realized, and it would be a pain to convert the air intakes, etc. So I am looking at rehabbing the Scorpion box and re-installing it, but converting it to full manual, as you suggest. This should be fun. Maybe.

Pete
Click to expand...
 
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