Went to a local car show today and saw a couple 32 - 34 Fords with what appeared to be heaters in them. Where they an option? Are they available? Are they practical in a Roadster? I would only want something period correct. Thanks
If you have a top and side curtains they work reasonably well. Not everyone lives in SO Cal where it never gets cold. Take a road trip where you have to drive over the passes in Utah or Colorado at night even in July and that heater starts making a lot of sense. It's either that or a plug in 12 V electric blanket or a snowmobile suit.
Back in the 90's when I owned a 32 roadster, I had a heater mounted under the seat, with the vents facing out towards the foot-well, was like sitting in a hot tub on a cold day..
The kids over at Ford Barn say the 1939 hot water heater was the 1st. Dad's '27 T has a little sheet metal duct on the manifold. Something like this.
there are something like 17 of them available in the parts for sale section here in various states of repair. https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/search/130484584/?q=heater&o=relevance&c[node]=47
Any early hot water heater would be period correct. Six volt motors would match your system, unless you've updated it to 12, but even then 12V motors are available. Yes they do work in a roadster. I put one in our A roadster when we built it many moons ago, and we used to fasten a blanket under bottom edge of dash, and heat would be awesome on our legs and lap.
a great many vintage heaters are like little pieces of art. I've bought and sold a bunch, even restored a few.
Heaters were available from the 1920s but didn't become a big seller until 1937. All car makers offered heaters as an add on accessory, sold from the dealer's accessory show case. There were also dozens of aftermarket heaters, your local garage could install one for you. First car with a built in heater was Nash in 1938. They called it "Nash Weather Eye Air Conditioning" but it wasn't air conditioning in the modern sense, but a heating and ventilation system built into the firewall like a modern car. Other cars eventually followed suit. Last vehicles to be built with no heater but an add on accessory were pickup trucks. Some had the add on type until the mid fifties.
Heater? does it get cold in California? HRP Our '54 wagon was purchased brand new from Blue Ridge Ford here in South Carolina and the heater was a option which my wife's grandmother didn't purchase. HRP
Don't know if Ford even offered a heater in 1932. No doubt if they did, and you could find one, it would cost plenty. Any accessory heater would be period correct for the forties or fifties. Many old cars had heaters added several years after they were built.
I am aware of the manifold heater for the 4 cylinder but not sure of the V8 but I will do some research when I get home,I do have a lot of early Ford reference material. HRP
My '37 Cadillac came stock with a hot water heater, the largest sedans came with a water heater for the front and a metal box around the muffler that funneled heat up to the rear through grates on the floor. I have a '38 cadillac hot water heater in my '30 tudor sedan and that thing will run you out of there.
An era appropriate option is the South-Wind heater, first brought to market by Stewart Warner in the mid '30s (some say '34 some '35). Condition would be critical as these are gasoline fired so scare many. If you are 12v and not quite absolutely hung on the period correct thing a viable cheat is retrofit seat heaters. No extra plumbing clutter under the hood, and no sacrifice of valuable foot real estate (and possible leak damage). It would drive the hard core nuts though...………...
I don't remember a heater for '32. I checked "The 1932 Ford Book" and it doesn't show anything. I would buy a later Ford hot water heater or a generic aftermarket hot water heater like the ARVIN and avoid heaters that had the name of other automotive manufacturers. Charlie Stephens "ARVIN". and
I installed a Arvin heater and used a 7' Spal fan. Here's a description I posted. https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum...with-with-a-7-spal-fan.1015736/#post-11478029
I drove a '33 roadster for a lot of years. A bunch of cold & wet rides. I also had a "Hades"(aftermarket) brand water heater in it. The heater plus wind-wings plus ear plugs made the ride tolerable. I owned side curtains but rarely used them because of the noise & fogging up.
Charlie, When reviewing my post from April 2016 I read your question about the Spal part number. 30100403 $67.45 VA22-AP11/C-50S Fan (6.5)" Better late than never???
As he lives north of the Bay area it can get chilly to the point of uncomfortable at night especially running back from the coast or the bay area. West coast you can have a 50 degree temp change between the high and the low in some areas even in summer. It isn't like your area where it stays hot 24/7.
I just bought this Firestone heater on ebay for the 29 sedan in my avatar. The car is an original used car from the 50's. My dad bought it from guy on the construction job he was working in 1954 for 94 dollars and change (one week paycheck) and it was his daily driver until 59. I know for a fact that hot water heaters were period correct because the firewall is Swiss cheese in the area of the passengers feet from all the different heaters it had over the years. No Heater in it now, so he apparently pulled the heater from this car and put it in the 48 Jeep pickup he was driving next, probably on a cold winter day when the Jeep heater (also aftermarket) sprung a leak or quit for some other reason. The Model A engine has whittled wooden plugs in the 3/8 pipe fittings that were used as heater hose adapters. I saved a search and was getting 8 or 10 results about every day. I waited a couple months for one that appealed to me, was in good condition and was at a price I liked, in this case 79.00 including shipping. The air doors are mounted to a chrome ring that can be rotated to any position to direct the hot air where you want it. Lots of heaters out there.
Nice try Truck64, but your attempt at being a wise guy failed. It would be correct if Algoma56 had been talking about heating water, but in this case he was referring to air that is heated by hot water as opposed some other means. Too bad (chuckling), perhaps you could try again.
Pretty much mandatory in Wisconsin if you want to drive in early spring or late fall, I always have one or two in stock for the next project.
There is one in every crowd it seems. Still my little racer style roadster is getting one of the vintage box heaters I have stashed in the shed just because comfort beats being one of the cool guys who doesn't run that stuff when you get to be my age. The car will have a tonneau cover that has a zipper down the middle to keep the passenger side covered when I am driving by myself. The plan isn't to venture more than about 120 miles from the house with it but who knows how far I might take it when it is done.
I run a "waterfall" style heater I found at the Portland Swap Meet for $20 bucks. Cleaned it up and wired in a 2 speed switch and it works great. Heats up my chopped AV8 quickly. Highly recommend it.
Got any pictures? Living in Alaska all my life, I've seen heaters in every vehicle I've ever ridden in. Never heard of one called a waterfall.
My Morris Minor came out without a heater. It had been an option for some time by 1958, though, conventionally drawing heat from the engine coolant. A small advantage of air-cooled cars like the VW Beetle and Citroën 2CV was that an effective heater was a mere matter of some ducting from the engine tins. But – just some lateral thinking coming out of my professional experience with rooftop solar systems: It's generally understood that if heat is what you're after, electrical resistance is probably the worst way to get it. It's far better to use electricity to turn a heat pump compressor, because the electricity itself is not the heat source. And of course the engine coolant heat is there, so why not use it? It just takes a while to warm up. And of course the engine is right there, producing torque which can turn things. Throw in another idea: why heat the air inside the car? Why not heat the occupants directly by conductance from, say, the seats? (I'd had the idea before to cool a closed car by chilling the roof dome rather than blowing cool air around. It's because such a huge part of the modern-car experience is all about that cocoon-like feeling the white noise of all those fans causes: it's all wrong. The problem boils – ironically – down to what to do with condensation.) So I'm thinking: a heat pump set-up like an air conditioning system in reverse, with an engine-driven compressor. The evaporator function is a heat exchanger in the engine's cooling system, on the radiator side of the thermostat, drawing heat from the coolant even when it's cold. The condenser function is a network of flexible tubes in the seats. Worth exploring?
If I was cold in my hot rod I could give a rat fuck if a heater was traditional, I would just have one. Who gives a fuck if some tool at a car show thinks it's traditional or not, take care of yourself is job #1...
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