Removing rear aircon/heater unit

[birtybongo]

Hi gang, I,m new to this converting game and would like to remove the rear aircon/heater unit to make room for a water storage tank.. I understand Wellhouse do this but any help/adviced on whether this is possible and how to go about it would be great.

[missfixit70]

This might get you going - http://www.igmaynard.co.uk/bongo/forum/ ... =3&t=29530

[Diplomat]

I just chopped to the other thread

This might get you going - http://www.igmaynard.co.uk/bongo/forum/ ... =3&t=29530

and was interested in the pros and cons of isolating/ removing the rear components.

One cannot argue with the logic that even the pipework contributes slightly to the overall cooling but there must be many who seldom, if ever run the back heater.

Whenever I encounter an unexpected traffic jam after my engine has been working hard in hot weather, I put the front heater on flat out and open the windows (and tell any passenger that they've just got to put up with it). To date I have never gone to the extreme of trying to reach back and slide the rear heater to 'hot'.

I don't often carry rear passengers who could do it for me (this is mainly due to my manful effort towards keeping the birth rate/population down).


Frank

[Northern Bongolow]

Whenever I encounter an unexpected traffic jam after my engine has been working hard in hot weather, I put the front heater on flat out and open the windows (and tell any passenger that they've just got to put up with it). To date I have never gone to the extreme of trying to reach back and slide the rear heater to 'hot'.

Frank[/quote]

i too think its great to torture my passengers, but if you study what your doing frank you are being counterproductive,the best thing to do for the saftey of your engine is to turn the heater off. this retains heat in the system helping the stat to open earlier/further,bringing cooler rad water into the engine, thus cooling it faster.

[Diplomat]

Whenever I encounter an unexpected traffic jam after my engine has been working hard in hot weather, I put the front heater on flat out and open the windows (and tell any passenger that they've just got to put up with it). To date I have never gone to the extreme of trying to reach back and slide the rear heater to 'hot'.

Frank

i too think its great to torture my passengers, but if you study what your doing frank you are being counterproductive,the best thing to do for the saftey of your engine is to turn the heater off. this retains heat in the system helping the stat to open earlier/further,bringing cooler rad water into the engine, thus cooling it faster. [/quote]


I don't quite work that one out, Ady. Surely an active heater with the fan going flat out is transferring excess heat from the engine to the atmosphere and thus complementing the already hard working radiator. I would hope that the thermostat would be well open after 'the engine has been working hard' ?

On cars with front hinged bonnets I used to pull the release as well to give extra airflow (in the good old days I could reach round from the window and push it back down again when the traffic eased enough to carry on).



Frank

[missfixit70]

Ady's got it about right, the stat is partly controlled by the temp of the returns from the heater circuit, if the heaters are on full whack, sucking all the heat out of that coolant, cold coolant will be pouring into the stat, bringing the temp in the chamber down effectively telling the stat to close in. Now in theory, if the engine gets to the point (96c) where the rad fans kick in, this cools the coolant going through the rad, but if the stat is still closed in more than it should be, even though the rad is getting cooled, that cooled coolant will not be flowing at it's best rate (if at all in the worst case scenario) through the engine due to the stat being closed in. Of course as you say Frank, the heaters are taking some of the heat away, but compare the size of the heater matrix & pipework to the size of the rad & its pipework, which one does more?
The bongo system works differently to more basic systems & switching the heaters on full blast to "assist" cooling may not be the best thing to do