Cracks and holes can be fixed!
We found a blower motor for the heater. But it was pretty cracked up and had two sizable holes about 3/4″ x 1/2″. (Sorry I didn’t take a before picture!)
So first up was to repair the casing. We used some thin fabric, sheeting or particularly light weight shirting. Glued it on the inside coating the whole patch with Duco cement.
Not only did that add support to the cracked parts, but it also served as a base for the patch over top.
For that we used Sugru. This is pretty cool stuff.. but on the expensive side. It feels a little like silly putty. But you smear it in the void and the crack and it bonds really well. According to the instructions for Sugru, you have to get the stuff started on the exisisting edges by really working it into the rough parts. But after that it sticks to itself really well. We also found a homemade recipe here.
Here’s a picture of the repaired holes and crack. (View the larger size to really see the work.)
Next up hoses and connections
We found the hoses at Victoria British. But they came with Moss Motors labels and part numbers.
But the elbow proved more difficult to find as a Hillman part.
However, we did find 90 degree silicone elbow coupler from Amazon to connect between the heater blower and the radiator panel.
Some people said they needed a 3″ connector. Our Hillman used a 4″ one. The elbow fits right over the flange on the blower and inside the round duct through the radiator panel. It needs to be trimmed a bit since without trimming it pushes the blower up too high. We trimmed a little more than an inch off of the vertical leg of the elbow. We noticed too late that the cut should have been made on an angle since the blower opening is not directly in line above the radiator panel opening, at least on our Minx, but it is in and so far seems serviceable.
YMMV.