With colder weather approaching and my 49 3100 improving with any and all repairs & mods I do to it, it is time to get the heating system working.
The truck has a recirculating air type heater, not the fresh air type, and when I would apply voltage to it it would just arc & spark, no fan movement at all.
In takeing it out and apart the coil drained quite a bit of anti freeze out so this motivated me to dig deeper with the thought that the core may be good so lets see whats going on inside.
The motor was bound up tight and would barely move even with the help of a pr of channell locks. But thankfully these old motors were built to be disassembled.
Upon disassembly the insides looked good, the brushes looked to have plenty of life left, so I polished up the shafts where they go into the brass bushings at each end and dabbed a little bit of grease in them. I also used some emery cloth and shined up the commutator & brushs. Put it back together and the the moter spun easily by hand. I then applied 6v to it and she spun nice and smoothly with little noise
So I cleaned the rest of the heater up, blew decades of dirt,dust and whatever else out of the core, put it back together, reinstalled it and will be picking up approx 6' of 5/8" heater hose for a heat test tonight. Hopefully the core is still good.
Bottom line, these old trucks and their parts were built back in the day when everything was still serviceable so before you throw something out, take it apart and clean it up some, it may be very worth your while.
Dave
