P15 heater Assy work, duct, blower motors L & R..

[3046moparcoupe]

Built our new wiring harness and have it coming through the firewall laying in the floor of the cab. Figured I better get the fresh air box back in place, and all the switches and gauges mounted up before I selected my harness route and started making 2nd end wire cuts and crimps. I've got more hours than I probably should have put into this fresh air box/heater assembly, originally mine was spot welded together in places and screwed together in others. I drilled pilot holes and used steel rivets where the parts were originally spot welded...(which allowed me to paint 100% of each part prior to assembly).  I guess this method has offered up some success, but the way this all sandwiches together, it's a bit dis-heartening to watch your paint get knocked off as many of the parts are too tight a fit due to the paint being there....anyway - pound to fit and then paint to match with your touch up brush   ( I used high temp rattle can engine enamel on this, and I've found when I need touch up, if I'll spray some in a cup and let it sit for a bit, to let the carrier solvent evaporate away, you can then brush it on to touch up - with better results and coverage.)

 

Wanted to ask you guys with the experience out there,....about my blower motors. This old P15 club coupe had the dual heater cores and blower setup in it....(I've come to believe since working on the car that someone added the second blower.duct/etc....I don't believe it came from the factory this way),....anyway - my plan has been to leave it the way it was and go back with the dual heaters..

 

My original fresh air box was badly eaten up, so I purchased a spare dual assembly I found on ebay and had lots of parts to work with...took the cleanest of whatever and started working to go back with it. Ended up with 2 heater cores that don't leak and are way cleaner than what I took out of our car, and now have a total of 6ea blower motors. Not too long ago, someone shared with me, (and it makes sense if you think about it), in the dual heater assembly setup, you have a blower motor that turns left hand and a blower motor that turns right hand. Out of these 6 motors, 4ea are RH and 2ea are LH, and the corresponding fan cages also have the slots pointing in opposing directions when you compare a LH to a RH...However when you look at the offset allen screw that attaches the cage to the shaft, it appears that the same squirrel cage is used for both, it's just turned 180 degrees one way or the other when installed....THAT LEADS ME TO MY QUESTION I WAS HOPING TO FURTHER MY EDUCATION ON HERE ON THE FORUM,....So far I've only been able to get one of these squirrel cages off without destroying it, and on that one I took a pair of pliers and held the shaft near the motor, grabbed the cage with my free hand and slowly began twisting it,...magic !! it came right off (course I'd already removed the allen screw),...tried it again on motor #2, and no dice,....even pulled the gorilla tape off my channel lock pliers to get a bit more bite on the shaft and still no luck,....at that point, since I had six of these cages, I cut the cage off the motor shaft. A bit easier said than done, actually I used by hand grinder and a thin cut off disc and slowly ground the wheel hub off. I used my fingers on the motor shaft as a heat sink and thermometer to tell me when to stop grinding as when I would feel any increase in temp on the shaft at my fingers I would stop and wait a few minutes to let the shaft cool back down, and go again, etc, etc...until I got the hub off the shaft...

 

Anyone out there got any tricks on how to get these squirrel cages off the motor shafts without botching things up ?

 

Also, (and this is something is respect to what I just learned from Plymouthy Adams here a few weeks back),...since these heater blower motors appear to be built with field coils, the internal wiring leads should be able to be reversed, changing the rotation direction of the motor, which would allow a RH motor to become a LH fairly easily...

 

So if I could get these cages off the motor shafts, then go through the motors, and select the best two motors, revers the leads if necessary to make one LH rotation, and then install the squirrel cages clocked either for a LH or a RH rotation,...I should be good to go ??  I THINK  

 

Actually, I'd like to get all these motors in as good a shape as possible for future use for me or someone. I'm finding 6v motors out there, but there all for Chevy or Ford. There may be other differences as well, but just at a glance I can see that the shafts don't look near long enough for our mopar stuff.

 

All these motors spin. I tested them today using a 6v lantern battery. Some better than others. I took the bottom cap off two and had quite a bit of fun figuring out how to get the brushes back in place and the caps back on, but finally I managed to accomplish it..once I got the cage off a motor and I had the end cap off as well, I would have though that I could push the armateur out the bottom of the motor but it would not come out. I was hoping I could get to the top bearing, anyone out there know ? do you have to drill those little rivets out to get it to separate ? I wish the parts book showed something on the heater assembly, the shop manual has an overview but nothing detailed..

 

 

[Eneto-55]

I'm curious as to the model number of your heater.  Mine (out of my 46 Special Deluxe 4 door sedan) looks nothing like yours, and has a fan with blades, not a squirrel cage like you show.  Mine is the MoPar Deluxe Model 36.  No rivets to remove to open it up - all screws.  On mine, the single motor fits through a hole in the center of the U shaped heater core.  As I recall now, the inlet & outlet did not use any of the standard heater holes in the firewall.  (I say 'as I recall' because I patched the firewall and painted it back in 1980 or 81.  Just now getting back to this project after leaving it sit in my Dad's shop for over 35 years.)  I'm wondering now if mine was actually for an older model Plymouth.

 

Edited:  I see now that it looks like the tag on yours says "Model 54".  Is that correct?

Edited July 22, 2018 by Eneto-55

[3046moparcoupe]

Eneto, yes you are correct. On this dual heater setup one faceplate reads Comfort Master and the other reads Mopar Model 54. A year or so back I also purchased a spare dual heater/fresh air box assembly off ebay that was a match for this one, ( face plates read the same thing), when it arrived it had a tag on it that said it had been removed from a 1941 Dodge. Last week, I picked up a single heater unit from a fellow over in Plano. he said it came out of a P15 Coupe that he used to own. Anyway, it's the larger heater box that has the doorway for the heater to vent cable control and the 2ea outlets for your 2inch defrost vent hoses.....being just a single unit it just reads comfort master on the faceplate....but all these  I have and have seen are identical in that, the outer oval shaped box that your blower motor squirrel cage stabs into, is screwed together,..but the inner duct - inside the oval shaped box that routes the air, is spot welded into the interior of the oval box, (hope that makes sense)..

 

I would agree with you, I does sound like you have a heater from an older yr model. I believe the standard single heater unit for a P15 would be just like the larger unit on the left side of the picture I attached here. and it would mount to the interior firewall on the passenger side. Maybe someone with more experience here on the forum will comment and post as to whether we are thinking correctly here, but from what I've seen - I believe this is correct.

 

Steve 

Edited July 23, 2018 by 3046moparcoupe

[Eneto-55]

Thanks Steve.  Now I'm really curious to hear from others, as to what heater models they have.  

I seems I only took disassembly pictures of my heater, as I am in the process of rebuilding the motor because of badly deteriorated wire sheathing (the cloth).  But here is one of the top of the unit, and you can see how the motor sits through the center of the heater core.

 

[Young Ed]

The model 36 was the first level optional heater for P15s. Then you moved up to the fresh air system with either 1 or 2 cores. 

Steve I believe you will find your motors aren't reversible just be swapping leads. To get those cages off use plenty of your favorite rust breaking oil and patience. 

[The Oil Soup]

I redid the heater that came with my truck replacing the core and the motor with parts from Oreillys. They both cost about $30 each and you can search the heater core sizes on the website and find one that works. The motor is 12 volt and is the same as the one Don C. shows in his rebuild and the core is aluminum.

[3046moparcoupe]

Eneto, you can trust Ed to speak the truth, he doesn't speak out unless he's for sure,...and he knows the P15 cars well....so we both learned something here....thanks again Ed,..

 

Ed, yeppurs, I just got back from Oreilley's, and it was a toss up, between the new Wd-40 professional,  the old faithful PB -Blaster, and another I'd never seen before, free up Rust, or something like that,...anyway - I went with the PB Blaster, I've used it before (course they probably pretty much all got the same stuff in em), anyway - here we go....and you are correct, (I didn't know this, Plymouthy taught me this a few weeks back), motor with permanent magnents, swap the input power polarity, motor changes direction,......motor with field coils, swap the input power polarity motor doesn't change directions, you have to reverse the wiring at the field coils,...but in regards to that, I just noticed something this morning about the 6ea motors I have,....4ea RH and 2ea LH,....the LH motors are a bit smaller in physical size, the blower box/core/etc on the LH size is also a bit smaller than the RH side,....(not that a RH motor wouldn't bolt up to the smaller core box, but I did wonder if the slightly larger motor might draw a few more amps, etc...anyway - since I've got both I'm gonna try to go back with the smaller motor on the LH side and the larger on the RH side, the way it appears Mopar did it......so far I was able to g et a cage off of one of each flavor motor, so I took both of them over to Randy at fort Worth Starter and Generator,...to go through them,...he said he'd go completely through them, put new wires on , new grommets, etc...so we'll see....they've been there forever and have 100% positive reviews, and they've always been super reasonable and done great work for me, so I may just get all these motors done depending on how pricey it turns out to be...

 

Oil Soup, I'd sure like to get new heater cores, even though these I have aren't stopped up, and they look clean, how close are they to having pin holes, etc...on the inside ?....I just wouldn't think there'yd be a snowballs chance in finding a core that would exit and enter through the firewall where it needed to work with these boxes without a lot of modification,....I  guess you can't have your cake and eat it to ,..huh ?  I'll do some research on the cores available and see what I can find...thank you for the input..

Edited July 23, 2018 by 3046moparcoupe

[Young Ed]

1 hour ago, 3046moparcoupe said:

Eneto, you can trust Ed to speak the truth, he doesn't speak out unless he's for sure,...and he knows the P15 cars well....so we both learned something here....thanks again Ed,..

 

Ed, yeppurs, I just got back from Oreilley's, and it was a toss up, between the new Wd-40 professional,  the old faithful PB -Blaster, and another I'd never seen before, free up Rust, or something like that,...anyway - I went with the PB Blaster, I've used it before (course they probably pretty much all got the same stuff in em), anyway - here we go....and you are correct, (I didn't know this, Plymouthy taught me this a few weeks back), motor with permanent magnents, swap the input power polarity, motor changes direction,......motor with field coils, swap the input power polarity motor doesn't change directions, you have to reverse the wiring at the field coils,...but in regards to that, I just noticed something this morning about the 6ea motors I have,....4ea RH and 2ea LH,....the LH motors are a bit smaller in physical size, the blower box/core/etc on the LH size is also a bit smaller than the RH side,....(not that a RH motor wouldn't bolt up to the smaller core box, but I did wonder if the slightly larger motor might draw a few more amps, etc...anyway - since I've got both I'm gonna try to go back with the smaller motor on the LH side and the larger on the RH side, the way it appears Mopar did it......so far I was able to g et a cage off of one of each flavor motor, so I took both of them over to Randy at fort Worth Starter and Generator,...to go through them,...he said he'd go completely through them, put new wires on , new grommets, etc...so we'll see....they've been there forever and have 100% positive reviews, and they've always been super reasonable and done great work for me, so I may just get all these motors done depending on how pricey it turns out to be...

 

Oil Soup, I'd sure like to get new heater cores, even though these I have aren't stopped up, and they look clean, how close are they to having pin holes, etc...on the inside ?....I just wouldn't think there'yd be a snowballs chance in finding a core that would exit and enter through the firewall where it needed to work with these boxes without a lot of modification,....I  guess you can't have your cake and eat it to ,..huh ?  I'll do some research on the cores available and see what I can find...thank you for the input..

 

For my fee you can send me one of those RH motors after you get them redone    My dual heater setup has a very weak RH motor. I tried swapping in a LH thats how I found out about the reversing of them. I also have a baggie containing the parts of the motor where I tried to flip the wires internally...... never could get those brushes back into place. How'd you do that?

[The Oil Soup]

4 hours ago, 3046moparcoupe said:

 

 

Oil Soup, I'd sure like to get new heater cores, even though these I have aren't stopped up, and they look clean, how close are they to having pin holes, etc...on the inside ?....I just wouldn't think there'yd be a snowballs chance in finding a core that would exit and enter through the firewall where it needed to work with these boxes without a lot of modification,....I  guess you can't have your cake and eat it to ,..huh ?  I'll do some research on the cores available and see what I can find...thank you for the input..

Here is a link to heater cores listed by size and I think the dimensions are strictly the core and not side tanks, but they do also list the inlet/ outlet sizes. I had to do some mods to make it work, but to have a custom made core was $100, so it was worth it. https://www.summitracing.com/search/part-type/heater-cores . Here is the blower motor I used, Oreillys has it listed as a Murray PM 354 for the same price. Good luck! https://www.rockauto.com/en/parts/vdo,PM354,blower+motor,6916

[Eneto-55]

6 hours ago, 3046moparcoupe said:

Eneto, you can trust Ed to speak the truth, he doesn't speak out unless he's for sure,...and he knows the P15 cars well....so we both learned something here....thanks again Ed,..

Yeah, I hit the THANKS button on his post. 

 

So are these the only three styles of heaters that were installed by MoPar dealers?  (I imagine there were a number of after-market heater kits available in those days as well.)

 

I didn't look at the link for replacement heater cores, but I seriously doubt that they have anything like the Model 36 has, with the blower motor up through the center of the core.  (Fortunately mine is good, at least so far....)

[Eneto-55]

Here are some photos of the MoPar Special Deluxe Model 36 heatr.  

Question: Do I have the duct up side down?  It was already out of the car when I got it (as I recall, now over 35 years ago...).

 

[Eneto-55]

35 minutes ago, Eneto-55 said:

7 hours ago, 3046moparcoupe said:

Eneto, you can trust Ed to speak the truth, he doesn't speak out unless he's for sure,...and he knows the P15 cars well....so we both learned something here....thanks again Ed,..

(Some how I messed this up, and even editing it, I couldn't get my comment out of the quote box....)

 

Yeah, I hit the THANKS button on his post. 

So are these the only three styles of heaters that were installed by MoPar dealers?  (I imagine there were a number of after-market heater kits available in those days as well.)

I didn't look at the link for replacement heater cores, but I seriously doubt that they have anything like the Model 36 has, with the blower motor up through the center of the core.  (Fortunately mine is good, at least so far....)

 

Edited July 24, 2018 by Eneto-55
correcting error.

[Eneto-55]

5 hours ago, Young Ed said:

 

... never could get those brushes back into place. How'd you do that?

On mine (probably different motor?) I was able to get the brush started back into the carrier, then there are little holes in the top, into which I was able to stick straightened out paper clips, to hold the brushes.  Then after replacing the armature, I could just pull out the paper clip wires.  But I took it back apart, because I'm wondering if I should replace the brushes while I have it open.  How do you know if they are too far worn down?

[Young Ed]

1 hour ago, Eneto-55 said:

7 hours ago, 3046moparcoupe said:

 

 

So are these the only three styles of heaters that were installed by MoPar dealers?  (I imagine there were a number of after-market heater kits available in those days as well.)

 

They are the 3 shown in the parts book so I would assume the only 3 installed at the factory/dealers. 

[3046moparcoupe]

Ed, here's what I did to  get the brushes back in place. The 1st couple of times I did this, I used 2ea pieces of masking tape (about 3" long each) and once I had the brush push back in place in the holder, I laid the masking tape down over the top of the brush holder, across the end of the brush and then let about 1/8 inch or so try to stick to the inside of the end cap, ( in the small area between the brush holder and your bushing hole), then I would have a few inches hanging outside the end cap to grab later.. I was amazed that the spring tension was not so strong that the tape actually held the brush inside the holder well enough for me to get the end cap in place, then once the end cap was about 75% on, I'd pulled the tape out. I used this method about 1/2 dozen times as I was playing with these motors, and it worked pretty well, (never seemed to damage a brush that I could tell - never got one caught up) a few hiccups (once the tape tore and left some inside so I had to start over, once the tape wasn't quite holding well enough (probably a little oil or something), so I used a second piece of tape on that one and also taped the wire to the brush down in place , which worked..(was kinda hating to treat the brushes that way, but this good yellow 3m tape isn't supposed to  and doesn't seem to leave any residue, etc).....but then, after a bit of this...., once I noticed that I had about a 1/2" or so of sliding up and down movement in the internal armature of the motor, I found that I could slide the armature shaft down as far as it wanted to go, and it gave me enough clearance that I could actually get the end of the shaft started in the bushing hole of the end cap, with the brushes just loosely taped back into the holders,  then I could reach in with a tooth pick and gentle push the brush back into the holder, kinda one at a time to make room for the brushes to move back far enough to clear that little grease shield and rest on the commutator surface...this allowed me to remove the tape much quicker than before while the gap between the end cap and motor housing was still open a bit. Seemed to work a lot better. 

 

That moving the armature down and just getting that extra 1/2" or so was huge in having just a little room to work....hope this makes sense.....

 

Eneto - I don't know why the motors Ed and I have, don't have a little hole in them in the end cap, where you can use a paper clip wire to hold the brushes in place, it sure would be easier, but these end caps on these motors just have screw holes that don't align up, and little rivet holes that are full of rivet heads  

 

Ed, I was able to get 2 cages off the motor shafts last night....they pulled easy, after standing them up vertically and letting PB Blaster sit in them for the day. I was seeing the blaster dis-appear all through the day, (So I took a paper towel and wrapped it around the shaft where it meets the motor housing jut to keep that stuff from going down inside the motor), anyway last night, I went ahead and gave each a twisty and they came right off....these 2 motors are going to ft Worth generator in the next few minutes.....I've still got 2 however, they so far - after a day of soaking - the Blaster is still just sitting there...not much choice but to continue I suppose - as you mentioned earlier, and be patient.... You know I'll help ya out with one of these motors. I don't know what they'll charge me, (so far they've been super reasonable), so let me see how many I end up with, etc...but I won't forget ya on this...

 

Steve'o

[Eneto-55]

Here is a photo of the inside on the Model 36 heater motor.  (I pulled the windings out to replace the leads, so it was also easier to get a better picture.)  You can see the holes in the top of the brush carriers.  That's where I stuck in the opened up paper clips to hold the brushes in place while replacing the armature.

 

Do my brushes look too worn down?  I measured them, but now i don't recall for sure, but I think it was just over 3/8".

 

Edited July 25, 2018 by Eneto-55
add question.

[Dodgeb4ya]

Brushes look good.

[Jerry Roberts]

On 7/23/2018 at 5:06 PM, Eneto-55 said:

On mine (probably different motor?) I was able to get the brush started back into the carrier, then there are little holes in the top, into which I was able to stick straightened out paper clips, to hold the brushes.  Then after replacing the armature, I could just pull out the paper clip wires.  But I took it back apart, because I'm wondering if I should replace the brushes while I have it open.  How do you know if they are too far worn down?

I used this same method . Only I used a VERY thin flexible solid wire . 

[37silverstreak]

Hi,

I was wondering where you got or what you used for the rubber seals on you fresh air duct. I just pulled my unit out for rebuilding and need to replace the rubber parts. Thanks!

Kevin 

[sunice70]

HI looking for information on where to get the defrost defuser end piece where the vent tubes connect 

[Young Ed]

On 8/19/2018 at 9:53 PM, 37silverstreak said:

Hi,

I was wondering where you got or what you used for the rubber seals on you fresh air duct. I just pulled my unit out for rebuilding and need to replace the rubber parts. Thanks!

Kevin 

On mine I used foam with adhesive on it for the top seal against the cowl. Sold normally to go between a box and topper for a pickup. For the door I bought a seal from Steele rubber. The circle bellows rubber piece I reused.