Heater Motor Upgrade

[.94 OR]

Paul said all the cool kids insulated their heater boxes so they were luxury quiet.
I have a left over 5 gallon bucket of a product called "Quiet Car" that I bought 20 years ago to sound insulate the interior of a Ford Escape my wife drove. Stripped the interior out of her brand new rig on a Friday night and painted everything below the windows 3 times then reinstalled the interior Sunday afternoon so she could head to work Monday. Stuff worked pretty good. Used it on the back side of my bi-fold laundry doors to dampen the dreaded laundry sounds. Also an '81 Yota a couple years ago.
Anyway, painted up the large portions of the heater assembly with this stuff. Takes the ring out of the metal components and even deadens the sound of the fiberglass box. Looking forward to having heat on command now. A small roller would have put a little more professional texture to it, but would be real hard to do with the crooks and nannies.

 

[DirtDonk]

Very cool! Be fun to hear how it all works out. Did you do any other parts of the bronco with the stuff?

 

[.94 OR]

This is the first install on the Bronco. Thinking about doing the inside of the doors and maybe the back of the door panel to quiet them down. They sound kind of "tinny" since they are just a hollow metal box. We did this to the Yota (even worse tinny sound) and the doors really quieted down afterwards.

 

[.94 OR]

I had an issue years ago with the Heat/Defrost cable slipping off the lever. My easy fix was a thin screw on nut designed for solid non-threaded shafts. I got the acorn style so there wouldn't be any edges to grab anything. Worked for years but doesn't come off and continue to be usable. Reassembled the heater and realized the cable holding bracket was not aligned with the lever arm so I used the Left-handed adjustable hammer and twisted it into alignment.
I also did a prescreen on the kickpanel inlet. Right or wrong, it has to be better than nothing at all.
I was able to use the stock fan to box gasket but I relocated the mounting holes to a larger circle so the foam needed punched. .223" hole cutter to the rescue.
Downloaded a decibel meter app and ran both blower fans. New upgraded fan was only about 1-1.5 db louder than the stock setup. I'm assuming benefit goes to the sound deadening I installed.

 

[sprdv1]

Nicely done.. Glad it worked well

 

[bigmuddy]

Of all the mods I have tried over the years I can't seem to get this one to work out.
My blower tends to contact the back of the box or something and makes noise. Tried smaller and larger blower cages and doesn't seem to make a difference. I know its easy right? I can rebuild a wiring harness and whatever else without a hitch but the damn upgraded blower motor kicks my ass

 

[chrlsful]

“...blower motor kicks my ass..."
@ what specific point? May have
a wrk-a-round by some1 here~

 

[.94 OR]

There appears to be 2 different blower wheels. One is the same thickness as the factory wheel and the HD one is an inch thicker. I initially ordered the HD version, because, why not and it hit the rear metal panel. I elected not to modify the rear panel and instead purchased the narrower wheel at NAPA. I shifted mine out the motor shaft to minimize the air gap from the wheel to the rear panel so it would hopefully pull air through the heater core and not just recycle it within the wheel housing.