289 Heater Project

[LMH]

Just a little update. Haven't had much time to work on the heater lately but did get to filling some holes. The heater as used in the Prefect, has slots in the front with slide controls to open/close the side doors. The Cobra unit doesn't have these, so the slots need to be filled in.
I'm not sure but I think all British steel is rusted before use! Because of this, I didn't want to get into filling holes with steel. Warping is also an issue as the steel is thin, so I opted to fill using lead.

I spot welded a small piece of sheet steel to act as backing behind each slot.




Leaded using an electric soldering gun.




Filled and ground off. Any small scratches will be filled in with primer and the whole heater block sanded.



One thing though, the original heater isn't perfect by any means and it's my intent to keep the replication that way as well.
Larry

[rsk289]

Larry, it's actually pretty good quality steel - I had no problem mig'ing the slots shut on mine. For the casing I used a spotwelder, replicating the positions of the original welds. Best to blast all the paint off the casings first.

[1795]

Larry,

All-in-all, it came out nice. Nice way that you considered options and settled on one that worked.

[LMH]

Originally Posted by rsk289

Larry, it's actually pretty good quality steel - I had no problem mig'ing the slots shut on mine. For the casing I used a spotwelder, replicating the positions of the original welds. Best to blast all the paint off the casings first.

Yeah, it's kind of luck of the draw as to what you get in the heater, now 50 years later. Experimenting with the cannibalized unit, I felt it better to lead the slots. Also for me, my MIG doesn't do well on the lower settings. If I had a TIG welder, this wouldn't have been an issue.
Once primered and sanded, you won't be able to tell.
Larry

[rsk289]

It's looking good. You still have some welding to do on the doors - or you could just fabricate complete new ones, I suppose.