Been meaning to post a load of photo threads for months now - here is the first!
As some of you may know, a few months ago I was sorting/painting the underside of my van.
As I did this, I also re-insulated all the heater pipes (having replaced the middle length under the van)
You can see some of this in this thread:
http://forum.earlybay.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=20632
and the previous one to that...
Anyway, when I came to joining the heat exchangers to the heater tubes on the van I thought I'd try something.
As we know, the 'engine' and 'van' are connected (in terms of the heating) with the flexible 'bellow' plastic tubes. Mine are original, and have the insulating 'fluff' inside, held in place with a tube of 'chicken wire'. Although still whole, the mesh is a little rusty, and the felt a little dusty, so I figured I would 'sleeve' the tubes, so preventing any dust from being blown up front..
I did this by passing some cardboard heater tube through the flexi-pipe:
A different diameter meant I had to flare the tube a little at one end:
This would attach to the van:
The other end attached to the heat exchanger:
Anyway, it all went together fine:
A nice 'clean' path for my lovely hot air to pass into the van.
So, engine back in and all running fine.
Hot air was indeed channeled back to the front on my van very well - it should do, as I had closed all leaks, replaced etc etc.
HOWEVER - it soon became apparent that the other thing that was transmitted to the front with fantastic efficiency was engine noise!
On the basis that I had put a lot of effort into getting rid of this noise with insulation eleswhere, this was a bit of a bugger! :roll:
Of course, in hind-sight, I had made nice solid(ish) sound tube contact between the heat exchangers and the van chassis.
It was amazing how effective this was - almost like surround sound.
I took a quick video, and you can really hear the difference with the heater flaps open or closed! :lol:
Click on the image below for the video (you will need sound!
)
So - lesson for today - those plastic bellows not only allow the heat to pass from engine to van, allowing the engine to move a little as well, but they also do a very good job at insulating the noise from the heater tubes! Obvious really, but I thought the video was worth sharing!
I took the engine out and went back to using my original tubes by the way. I'm sure most of the dust has already been blown out - and that stereo engine noise has now disappeared entirely!
8)
My other new threads should be 'how to...' as opposed to 'how not to...' :roll:
As some of you may know, a few months ago I was sorting/painting the underside of my van.
As I did this, I also re-insulated all the heater pipes (having replaced the middle length under the van)
You can see some of this in this thread:
http://forum.earlybay.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=20632
and the previous one to that...
Anyway, when I came to joining the heat exchangers to the heater tubes on the van I thought I'd try something.
As we know, the 'engine' and 'van' are connected (in terms of the heating) with the flexible 'bellow' plastic tubes. Mine are original, and have the insulating 'fluff' inside, held in place with a tube of 'chicken wire'. Although still whole, the mesh is a little rusty, and the felt a little dusty, so I figured I would 'sleeve' the tubes, so preventing any dust from being blown up front..
I did this by passing some cardboard heater tube through the flexi-pipe:
A different diameter meant I had to flare the tube a little at one end:
This would attach to the van:
The other end attached to the heat exchanger:
Anyway, it all went together fine:
A nice 'clean' path for my lovely hot air to pass into the van.
So, engine back in and all running fine.
Hot air was indeed channeled back to the front on my van very well - it should do, as I had closed all leaks, replaced etc etc.
HOWEVER - it soon became apparent that the other thing that was transmitted to the front with fantastic efficiency was engine noise!
On the basis that I had put a lot of effort into getting rid of this noise with insulation eleswhere, this was a bit of a bugger! :roll:
Of course, in hind-sight, I had made nice solid(ish) sound tube contact between the heat exchangers and the van chassis.
It was amazing how effective this was - almost like surround sound.
I took a quick video, and you can really hear the difference with the heater flaps open or closed! :lol:
Click on the image below for the video (you will need sound!
)
So - lesson for today - those plastic bellows not only allow the heat to pass from engine to van, allowing the engine to move a little as well, but they also do a very good job at insulating the noise from the heater tubes! Obvious really, but I thought the video was worth sharing!
I took the engine out and went back to using my original tubes by the way. I'm sure most of the dust has already been blown out - and that stereo engine noise has now disappeared entirely!
8)
My other new threads should be 'how to...' as opposed to 'how not to...' :roll:
