Restoration of a Smith's Heater - Page 2

We were glad to find that our factory blower motor worked fine when tested. A replacement motor can be purchased through mail order suppliers of British car parts, but usually the word "replacement" means it's not exactly the same as the original. So, for a restoration project, it's always nice to find the factory motor working just perfectly. However, if this is not the case, it can usually be repaired.

To remove special collet fastener from end of blower motor shaft the squirrel cage had to be held in place with screwdriver.

To repair the motor it is mounted in my lathe so the commutator can be cleaned up to a smooth surface. Most of the time a tool bit will not even be required, as usually a medium crocus cloth held against the spinning commutator will do the trick. The motor's carbon brushes may need replacing. To do this you have to remove the motor from its housing. Bad brushes will show wear, discoloration and chipping. Any shop that repairs electric motors should have brushes that are close enough in size to be used with minor alteration.

Once you polish the commutator and replace the brushes, the field winding wires need to be re-soldered. Then connect the motor leads to a 12-volt battery to test operation of the blower motor. If it spins, then use a meter to check if the current is strong. You should get a reading of about two amps.

All gaskets were in bad shape, but reproductions are readily available.

The parts of this heater were basically in good condition. The flange on the heater box cover had a few kinks and bends that were easy to straighten using a vise or light tapping with a small hammer. The air hose connectors -- made of very thin sheetmetal--were all out of shape, but they straightened up nicely when we tapped a large, tight-fitting socket down into then and tapped around the outside with our small hammer. The heater core looked very good, but we used some special tools that Eastwood sells for restoring radiator fins to straighten a few of the tiny heater core fins that were mushed. The hinges on the flip-up door of the hot air outlet vent need to be freed up with Liquid Wrench and then lubed up.

As far as refinishing the parts of the heater, most of the parts and fasteners were originally painted black. We used satin black Rustoleum spray paint, but we applied multuiple coats and did a lot of wet sanding with 600-800-grit paper between coats. We cleaned the clips with a wire wheel on our grinder and painted them with some really cool "chrome" paint that Eastwood sells. That made them look very nice, although you can have them cad plated or buy brand new ones. We painted the insides of the heater box and cover, too. We did not paint most fasteners black, even if they were originally black. They look nice with a bright finish to we wire brushed them until they looked bright and spray clearcoated them.

We originally painted the "squirrel cage" black, then noticed a restored Jaguar at a show had a Smith's heater with two blower fans painted white. Sure enough, after asking around, we were told this part was done in white and we corrected our mistake. Our heater was also missing the screening, so we went to the local hardware store, got some that looked like the Jaguar's and cut it into a circle so the circular collar cut hold it in place. We painted it white, too.

No wonder the hinges on the flip-up door covering the hot air outlet vent were sticky. Penetrating oil, wire brushing and lubrication fixed the problem.

We fixed up the air hose connector on right by driving a tight-fitting socket into it with a hammer. Then it looked more like the one on the left.

A couple of new parts were required including rubber grommets for around the pipe connector and gaskets for the heater control valve and air outlet vent. The rubber grommets always look too big for the holes they have to go into, but with a little twisting using needle nose pliers and tiny screwdrivers, they finally sandwich themselves around the holes in the tin. Our parts order came to about $30.

The parts order included reproductions of the "Caution" and "Smith's" nomemclature plates used on all Smith's heaters. These have been copied because the writing on the originals is almost always worn away. There is nothing like a brand new nomenclature plate to make something look "restored." The blanks for the code, model and voltage need to be re-stamped with the numbers from the original plates. Rivets hold the nomenclature plates on the heater box.

Reproduction "Smith's" plate on bottom came from Scarborough Fair and will still need to be stamped with numbers from the original.

We purchased our parts from Ceceilia Bruce at Scarborough Faire. Moss Motors, Victoria's British, Abingdon Spares and other mail order houses sell them, too. However, anytime we can get what we need from Scarborough, we go there because Ceceilia can answer any questions we have. When she made up a "kit" of engine parts for our MG Magnette, we did not have anything leftover and we only had to order one additional item. In contrast, when we did our TD motor, we wound up with things we didn't need and it was like an order a week for awhile to get left out parts we did need. Unfortunately, Ceceilia only sells MGA stuff, although some of it does crossover to other British cars like the Daimler.

The Smith's heater after a "cost effective" restoration.

At the end of the Daimler project, when we put the heater back in the car, we may need to order air hoses, ducts, pipes, control cables and a heater control panel. While these are available for other British models, they may not be direct crossover parts to the Daimler. Luickily, parts used on British models tend to be of fairly standard issue and we shouldn't have much trouble finding what we need.