The Madison had no heater and I’d been debating whether to put one in or not. My Triking is powered by a Moto Guzzi engine which being air cooled provides no heating potential so I’ve often had “character building” drives in the British summer weather. I’m planning to use the Madison all year round and have a tonneau cover with a zip in the middle to close off half the cockpit, so it seemed worth putting a heater in before the dashboard went in as it would make access more difficult.
I find the website at Car Builder Solutions a good source of parts and they have several heaters available, including a small self contained unit that only needs power and a hot water supply. I decided to go for this as it would easily fit.
Before fitting the heater it was time for an unpleasant job, namely removing the old carpet and sound proofing which was filthy and crumbing to bits in places releasing fibres and dust, a grim job but such is the lot of us car restorers..
Once cleaned up I used a couple of pieces of old metal shelf brackets bolted through the bottom of the bulkhead panel to install the heater on. You can see how compact the heater is – the mug of tea is so you get an idea of size!
With the heater positioned onto the brackets I could mark where the heater hoses needed to go through the bulkhead and drilled them with a hole saw. The heater was then bolted to the brackets using a couple of pieces of threaded rod and looks quite neat I think. It gives out just over 4KW so should warm the car up with a half open tonneau cover, failing that maybe I’ll go for a Kayak spraydeck!
