The Stovebolt Site Forums The Parking Lot '60-'66 Trucks Very basic heater question

Ok, so after digging my c10 out after 4-5 months of semi-storage, i noticed that there was smoke coming from the heater box under the hood. I'm in the process of tearing it apart to see what's going on. (From the smell it would seem that I've got a coolant leak inside it somewhere). However, as I was diagnosing that, I was trying to get the heater to work and see what kind of performance it was giving. I have what I believe is called a "thrift-air" cab, in that i have one knob that says pull for air and twist for fan. Anyway, nothing seems to happen when I pull and twist. My very simple question is, is there a blower inside the heater box that should be working. I've just gotten done replacing the fuse block, and I didn't see any electrical for the heater, so I'm a little confused. I've found this link:
http://www.64moneypit.pages.qpg.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/diagrams/66htr.jpg

and I see that the thrift air setup has a wire going to the fuse box, but I sure didn't see it when I was working on it, so it may be that it has been removed. My electrical system has been messed with by a previous owner. does anyone know what color that wire is supposed to be?

The blower is at the bottomof the outside heater box. The heater supply wire is red on my 64.

The blower motor on my '65 is under the heater core box inside the engine compartment and can be a little tricky getting to the four or five screws that hold it in place. When I first got my truck the blower wasn't working and after tracking down all the wiring and making sure power was getting to the blower I pulled the motor and found it had frozen up. A quick turn of the squirrel cage by hand freed the motor and it has been working since that time. According to the '65 shop manual the wire from the resistor to the blower should be orange. Hope this helps, good luck.

Richard

By the way, the shop manual does not specify a color for the wire from the fuse block to the switch for Thrift-Air models but Deluxe-Air models use a brown wire.

Richard

Ok, thanks for all the replies. I checked under the dash and I don't see any other wires that would come from the heater blower. Looks like it's been cut of at some point in the past. Mystery solved.

Anyone have suggestions on getting the squirrel cage off of the motor? I removed the little o-clip retainer and hit the thing with a little PB Blaster... But, I'm not having much luck getting it off.

Sometimes the squirrel cage gets stuck on the motor shaft. Most I have seen have a nut on the end of the threaded drive shaft. Once the nut has been removed, the cage should pull from the shaft, however a bit of persuasion is sometimes necessary. Wedge a flat screwdriver between the motor housing and the cage and tap the shaft with the nut loosely on it, to help dislodge it. Be careful not to compromise the threads on the end of the shaft.

BigWeb -

Let the PB Blaster do its magic for a while. Then see if the squirrel cage will wiggle a little on the shaft. If so, keep wiggling. Then try gently holding the center of the fan that goes over the shaft with pliers and tap the shaft to jar it loose. This will avoid prying on the squirrel cage and bending it. Don't mushroom the end of the shaft. Don't deform the fan center. Do this over a soft landing for the motor when the shaft frees up. It worked on my '54 and on a '60.

Good luck.