One of the coolest original accessories you can add to your 3A is the
Harrison heater. They can usually be found on Ebay for between $50 and
$100, however, being 50 years old, they are generally pretty rusty. I
found my heater on Ebay for $101, which I later realized I way overpaid! I
will not go in to too much detail here once again because two very valuable
websites exist that go into great detail on restoring the heater:
CJ-3B Page.
 Here's my
$100 pile of rust. |
 To the naked
eye it looks pretty bad, but it was worse! |
 What's left
of the Willys decal |
 I finally got
the back off. Someone welded a steel patch over the mounting stud on
the right. |
 This is where
all the Harrison heaters break. It's very thin sheetmetal and a small
reinforcement in the rear of the mounting stud. |
 After
removing the plate that was welded on, I marked the area I wanted to cut
out. |
 Here I made a
template of the hole so I could transfer them once the new piece was welded
in. |
 Here the new
piece is clamped in place... |
 And here is
the back with the sheetmetal replaced and a new stud installed. |
 Stripped and
ready for paint! |
 The fan was
taken apart and cleaned and painted. |
 I don't think
these knock-outs were on the 2A's (anyone know?), but they are for the
Harrison heater. You won't find these on repro bodies! |
 The heater
core is leak tested underwater with about 20psi of air. |
 Any small
leaks were repaired with some epoxy. |
 The core and
the fan are installed. |
 A brand new
heater is ready to install! |
 The unit is
pretty difficult to squeeze under the dash. I ended up cutting about
1/2" off the heater core tubes to get it in. |
 The heater
fits great in the holes already provided from the factory. I used a
nice retro rotary switch I found on Ebay to power the unit. |
|
|
|
|