I now have a heater!
I bought one of the valves from Germany:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/224543798978
Or rather, I tried to.
They took my money, marked it as despatched and then a few days later refunded me. No explanation. I messaged them in both English and very broken German but didn't get any response.
Not impressed with the communication - what peed me off the most was that on the refund message from E-bay they had stated that
I had asked to cancel the transaction!
I see now that they have changed the listing to 'out of stock'.
Therefore, I had to make something else fit.
After a bit of measuring, I settled on the following:
16mm push to close brass water valve:
https://www.t7design.co.uk/brass-hea...7-d03-0a0.html
1.5m bowden cable:
https://www.t7design.co.uk/type-a-bo...6-207-ce6.html
1m of 16mm edpm heater hose:
https://www.t7design.co.uk/epdm-car-...5-aad-571.html
(For the amount I used, this could better be substituted with a 90deg edpm elbow that they sell instead, with the 90deg taking the place of the volvo hose I ended up adapting, especially if you have had to cut the original hose off.)
A 16mm brass bulkhead fitting:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0B77XYS...t_details&th=1
And a few extra hose clamps.
I did pay extra for DPD delivery on the stuff from T7 design as Royal Mail's latest record for delivery here is now just over three weeks on a 48hr tracked service and I kind of wanted to get on with it, but otherwise the total cost is less than £40.
The first trial fitting.
The short length of rubber hose needs to be cut such that the brass valve almost touches the inlet on the heater matrix, but leaves enough length that the valve can be lifted enough to point more directly at the hole in the bulkhead which it currently sits below:
I didn't want it all flopping about down there. Luckily I found this random bracket left over from when I built our kitchen a few years ago:
In order to fix that bracket to the car, I neded to drill a hole just at the end of the tippex mark on the steel sheet here:
Somehow I managed that, and with the bracket loosely in place, part of the original volvo hose is trial fitted to point to the hole in the bulkhead.
Now, the original bowden cable was never going to reach down to a replacement valve so that needed to be changed.
I had assumed, that the original cable came off the left of the slider, did a little loop, and then went directly to the valve.
It does not.
It comes off the right hand side of the slider, loops over the heater unit and controls a flap in the air intake. From there a second cable runs to the valve and it is this one that must be replaced.
Can you see it?
No?
Here you go:
This is what took the time. It is the cable closest to the pivot that has to come off. A long screwdriver popped the out cable clamp off, and then I was able to pop the inner out of the white plastic clip you can just about see.
At this point it is worth noting that the inner cables here aren't double bent, the have a single 90deg bend in them and are then clipped into the white plastic clip, so I had to modify the new cable.
Getting the new cable actually clipped into that plastic clip was quite frustrating! It would look like it was ok, but after a few actuations it would work its way out again. In the end I had a screwdriver wedged under it against the heater box, and then used my 1/4 drive extension wedged against the upper bulkhead to get the pressure required to seat it properly.
I originally bought the 1.5m cable deliberately thinking it would be too long and I would need to cut it down, but in fact it turns out it works out just right for me being able to route it with only gentle bends in it. it runs along over the top of the pedal box, curves around almost against the right hand side of the car, passes through the loop formed by the ignition ecu, goes just above the steering column and onto the valve.
Once it was hooked up I discovered that becase it was driven by the inside of the lever (I.e. closer to the pivot point) on the top of the heater box, that shortened the throw compared to if it came straght off the slider, and therefore it didn't have enough throw to open the valve any further than this:
So the valve had to come out again (twice) while I drilled some extra holes in the arm so that the throw I had available would open the valve from the fully closed position, to, as it ended up, about 95% of the way:
All fitted:
Further out picture of the bowden cable route.
Good job my car is an auto.
In a manual I suspect bending the cable retaining bracket
might get the cable to clear in front of the clutch pedal, but without one to check I can't be sure. The alternative maybe would be to make an L shaped lever and use the original bowden cable to drive that with a short link to the valve lever. The valve in that case would need to be push to open..
The bulkhead fitting showing in the engine bay:
I was originally going to use a piece of 15mm copper with an olive soldered on to either end, but given how thin copper pipe is these days, the much more substantial piece of brass seemed the right option.
I had made some washers to go either side of the bulkhead, but as it turns out the centre part of the fitting wasn't quite long enough to use them. It isn't moving around, but I ended up putting some silicone (
) around the hole on the engine bay side to ensure any gaps were filled in case of exhaust leaks etc..
And with the hoses hooked up and the coolant topped back up again I now have a toasty warm heater
