The heater was attacked next. I don't know if it's original or not. I totally disassembled it. There was a mud dauber nest I had to clean out of the heater core. Some of the shafts that the flaps were on were worn down where they went through the housing and rusted pretty bad. I tried some muriatic acid on the flaps and the fan blades. That seemed to work pretty well dissolving the rust. I then washed them off good and dried them thoroughly. I media blasted the heater housing. To replace those worn and rusted shafts, I carefully ground the welds and old shafts off the flaps. I used new 1/4" rod and welded them in. Once I had everything cleaned up, I powder coated the pieces.
On reassembly, I put in new rubber grommets and springs. I also was able to source a new motor. I just cleaned up the nameplate as best I could without destroying it. Fortunately, the original knobs were in good shape, so I reused them.
It actually came together quite nicely. I like working on a small section of the project like that to be able to feel like I'm making progress.
