I have a 1939 plymouth deluxe that has a stewart warner - south wind heater. Its is my understanding that this heater is fueled by gasoline. I have been told it best to switch to a hot water type system. Does anyone know how the stewart warner system works and is it safe to use? Where could I give a manual about how to operate this heater system? I would like to keep the car as original as possible. Any thoughts.
There is a very long informative thread about South Wind heaters on the V8 Ford forum. I have made several contributions to that tread because I have had a lot of first hand experience with the SoWin heaters.
For starters then are not original equipment for a Mopar, the SoWin heaters were always an after market add on.
Secondly the gas fired heaters were the pits, they usually emitted an odor into the car, they sucked up a lot of fuel even when gas was .15 a gallon.
The gas heaters one claim to fame was that they were reputed to give off instant heat.... that is if and when they worked.
Here again is one of the arguements for 180 thermostats, the hot water heaters look better, work better, with very little if any maintenance.
The one good thing about an old SoWin heater is that they usually bring a very good price on eBay.... Bill
Can you post a link to the Ford heater discussion thread?? I've got a Southwind heater that I want to find out more about so I can list it for sale. (Sorry for being so mercenary!)
PS:? Skinned Knuckles magazine ran some Southwind articles a few years ago.
You can Google for info on the South Wind heaters, there is a web site for them that has mauals, etc.
Seems they were very popular in the VW bugs, makes sense with their ineffecient manifold heater which probably worked as poorly as the Ford version.
The Ford Forum is: wwwearlyfordv8.org
The forum is simular to the POC except they list the original question first, as do most forums, then each reply follows. Makes it easier to track the question and responses....Bill