heaterbox rebuild

[ugly_90]

It looks like i'm finally through my heaterbox rebuild on my LHD 110, it was several days of labour. It had been a mousehouse with nests in there, with quite nasty corrosion setting in too. More than a can of febreeze would have fixed.

I drilled out all the rivets, and sandblasted all the steel. I then used POR15 on all steel and reassembled. It was certainly a budget project, costs were very low, a few supplies, 70 or so rivets, and a few days of time. Well worth doing again. I made no upgrades to the unit at all, as that was outside the scope of work.

I even managed to get the various replacement foam and cork from Dollarama at low cost as art supplies. I recycled salvaged self tapping stainless steel screws from a communications dish we scrapped at work.

If I were to do it again, I would instead use an acid rust remover of some kind after the sandblasting, to ensure all corrosion was out of the pitted inside bottom steel.

Not a major fault here, sections could be replaced with bent fresh metal in another 20 years if this rusts out.

This is certainly a winter project anyone can take on for themselves. simple, minimum heated space and minimal materials required.

[Red90]

I use closed cell foam from Home Depot. It comes in 1/8" x 3" rolls. It does not absorb moisture and is rated for the temperature. In addition to the flaps I cover the hot walls to help reduce heat loss.  Use thicker stuff to seal the matrix to the box.

[ugly_90]

I applied my missing step on refurb of the rollbar brackets, as they were badly corroded at bottom as well. Sandblasted, then soaked the pitted areas in Evaporust, using up very little of that. Rinsed in water as directed, and dried in the kitchen oven (before the missus woke up) to reduce flash surface rusting. It'll be headed for galvanizing next, so blasting again and coating will be unneeded.

[Matt H]

Evaporust? I'm not familiar with that. Sounds like an interesting product.

[Alex C]

princess auto sell in in a 10 lt pail, works very well, strips the rust vs converting it to the black coating,

[binch]

I applied my missing step on refurb of the rollbar brackets, as they were badly corroded at bottom as well. Sandblasted, then soaked the pitted areas in Evaporust, using up very little of that. Rinsed in water as directed, and dried in the kitchen oven (before the missus woke up) to reduce flash surface rusting. It'll be headed for galvanizing next, so blasting again and coating will be unneeded.

Will there be enough clearance in the bracket hole (after galvanizing) for the roll bar tube to fit? ???   They seem to be pretty snug when they aren't coated.....   

[ugly_90]

There may not be enough clearance on the inside diameter of the pipe after coating. It was siezed on there quite badly when it first came apart. I can have the plated pipe bored out for free here after galvanizing, should it fail a dryfit.

It is, after all only two pieces of welded steel with a few bends, nothing that couldn't be fabricated again. Of primary concern is the steel that meets the floor, and the sides that have space behind, as corrosion was  worst there.