MadaboutKitcars

Happy new year!

Its been a while since i last posted and i felt it was time for an update for the handful of Miglia owners out there.

Its been a great summer and ive been out enjoying the car and have taken it to a number of shows where it has attracted a lot of positive feedback.

Sadly i changed phone in December and lost all my summer photos before i could upload them but i did go out for a run on New Years Day up on the Mendips and got a lovley pic just as the sun was setting (and my hands were going numb)



And yes... i know i left the door a bit ajar and the rear wheel is in a pothole, but did i mention that it was chuffing cold, as can be seen by the ice in front of the car. But it was worth it.

Hopefully more updates in 2017!

Looks great!, thanks..

cool nice too see it out

Dave - Welcome back.

Shame you lost all your summer photos, but that sunset one looks great.

Cheers, Paul.

CAR LOOKS GREAT OUT AND ABOUT DAVE ...Glad to see you are using her ...

It was always my plan to get the car on the road and enjoy it and then over time start adding more posh bits.

Well ive had a good year enjoying the car but in the new year drive out i decided that the time had come to start applying poshness, starting with heating!

Ive been building a stock of stuff from autojumbles and fleabay over the years including some of those amazing air vents used by RR and Bentley as id won the centre console of a Bentley Continental for next to no money a few years back



But when i got it down from the attic in the garage i was stunned to see that one of the vents the chrome was peeling already! On a 10yr old Bentley vent! Not cortina or Triumph. Bentley!


Anyhow.... despite niggling it was time to dig out all the bits and see what i had


(Ignore the alternators!!)

Then i bit the bullet and tried to figure out where to fit things. After a lot of pondering i dug out the hole saws and went for it




Scary, but with the vents roughly screwed in place im very happy with how this is looking

Looking good!

Looking at your heater collection, I have a similar Smith's heater in the Jag. Totally useless, very little heat or blow. I fitted an uprated metric and blower motor from David Manners. It is now useless +5%! Don't bother wasting your money if you were considering trying to improve one of the old Smith's heaters.
Has anyone fitted a good after market one that actually works?

So, how do you define 'works'?

I fitted one of the small, square micro heaters and it does a really good job of stopping the engine from overheating while stuck in traffic in the blazing sun. As such, as a supplementary cooling device it really 'works'.

As a heater, with the output air directed through appropriate ducting it will take the chill off but it's never going to make you sweat, and without the ducts it's completely useless as any heat produced just gets sucked out of the car without doing diddly squat.

Additionally, in winter my old motor runs much cooler anyway so there's less heat in the water circulating through the heater matrix to start with, which definitely affects the heat output - it's much more efficient as a heater in summer!

Having said all the above, I would recommend fitting some sort of heater matrix to any kit car, primarily as a supplementary cooling radiator, and if it warms the cockpit at all in winter then it's a bonus.

Otherwise, just take a leaf out of Phil J's book and wear the full sheepskin lined leather flying jacket with matching hat and you'll both feel warm and look cool, which is quite a neat trick to pull off.

Not after market but...............


I've fitted the flat Triumph Spitfire heaters in a few kit cars and found them to be fine, as long as a passenger isn't being carried, necessitating the removal of the other half of the tonneau cover. I disable the screen vents and the near side cockpit vent so that all the heat is directed into the driver's side footwell. This, in combination with my heated vest, keeps me toasty on the coldest morning.

Regards, Mick

But avoid looking like Chubby Brown

Dave - It seems that they don't make Bentleys like they used to.

Still, at least your car looks good.

Cheers, Paul.

Cheers for the comments guys.

I'd looked at the micro heater that Towed has and also those Spitfire units but i quite like the idea of reusing original parts wherever i can so I'll have a tinker with those 2 Vitesse units first and see what can be done before i look elsewhere.

I've now got the dash vents secured and while I'd like to eventually make some milled alloy surrounds these will do for the moment although i am wondering if they are a bit too big for the cockpit?



Next bit i want to tinker with are the controls, centre console and footwell vents

My how time flies, as i was just reminded that it was time for what is known by my sons as "the little red car" to have it's MOT!

Well it went in to my local garage last week and as some of you who've been around will remember, my local is a bit of a stickler (which is why i go to him!) and it passed 1st time with no advisories


So with that out of the way it was back to the garage for more tinkering with the cockpit heating/cooling.

After looking at the various controls and switches I've accumulated i decided to go for the Chrome levers and then came time to play with where to fit everything.

After a few hrs of sticking things in various locations (ooh err matron!) I've decided to go with a central location:



I found the shift pattern of the gear lever to be quite interesting and the plan is to make alloy panels and then mill an alloy geargate and bolt that on as a finishing piece.

With the template roughly right i transferred it to Alloy and fitted the control levers (i can't wait for the comments when people read "Demist" on the left control!) and I also decided on a location for the switch. Although the switch knob i plan to replace in alloy at some point.

I also decided to fit the lighter I've had since my old Sammio build that has "Cigar" written on end, as it just seems to fit and it also makes the car that little bit more Terry Thomas in character lane:



Now time to disassemble all of that and make it look a bit more finished before i start looking at the 2 Vitesse heat exchangers i have in order to see if either of them is going to be of any use.

Dave, liking the tinkering and upgrades. With reference to your own comment a out the vents looking too big have you thought about rear mounting them?

+1

I particularly like the alternative "H" gate.

Good luck, Paul.

I think it is the "Triberatti Trident"

Hi Dave, i don't normally post on forums but as a fellow Miglia owner i thought i'd tell you what i did for heating mine, i used the original herald heater and piped it direct through into both footwells above the feet for maximum effect then had the original seats recovered in black leather but with after market 12v seat heater pads in the back and base, this gives a rather toastie warm feel in all temps. i'll try to post some pics of the car when i work out how to upload them. Cheers.

Cheers matey, after a bit of tinkering and looking at the old Triumph units i think i'm in agreement and i'm going to use one as well.

Here's the tinkering so far....

Out of the 2 units the rounded one seemed to fit best here:



So i did some jiggling and thinking and i'm going with that and also the old variable vent unit



Then i took it apart to clean and paint it. what a lovely old-fashion design insofar as it was designed to be repaired, rather than thrown away like a lot of the modern stuff!!

In this configuration the air intake of the heater ends up pointing down, so i thought about cutting holes in the bulkhead, didn't really fancy that, and then was inspired by some PC cooling bits i had lying around and i ended up fabricating this out of alloy where the air comes in through the wide gap on the right edge



That fits in lovely and allows me to take the air intake from one of the side vents in the shell using a bit of flexi-pipe behind the battery!



You can also see that i have cut a rectangular hole in the bulkhead through to the cockpit and that is slightly larger than the variable vent box but now at a slightly different height to the output of the heater so some more fabrication was needed.

This time roughed up in card and then fettled in alloy to bridge the gap and feed the air through to the cockpit

I've now taken all of the heaters and fabricated parts off for painting, but while i'm waiting for those to dry i've also decided to take the plunge and add a badge to the back!!

I've dithered on and off for years about what, if anything, to put on the back but after talking to lots of people at lots of shows over the past few years i think it's only right (for me) to put this one on it

Dave – Sorry, I meant to say I like the Vitesse badge before the photo was hi-jacked.

I also like the way you have sorted out the heater and can simply make any parts you need now.

Good luck, Paul.

Cheers Paul, i'm willing to try most things with this car now, knowing that if it goes wrong then i can re-do it!

So my heater has been stripped, cleaned, painted, reassembled and fitted



I've now plumbed it in and done a test drive to make sure it's all water tight.
Although i don't have a flow control valve in place yet, so atm it's hot-or-not.



Now it's onto the centre console ready for the incockpit piping, controls and electrics to be finished off and tbh i'm happy with how this is going, but it needs a bit more tidying yet.



BTW i've put these on photobucket, but i'm aware of the faff, so if anyone can advise of an alternative photo host that we're all going for then it would be greatly appreciated!

Dave - I think the copper pipes add to the look.

I've been using Google+ for my photos, but the code is literally hundreds of characters long.

This was a change they made to beef up security, but I regularly hit the forum limit of 10,000 characters a post.

Good luck, Paul.

Paul, try tinyurl.com