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Thu Mar 24, 2016 9:43 pm

So since I've had my Baja done I've had issues with the heater tubes between the body and motor. Since I put a 3 inch body lift on it the heat exchangers don't want to line up with the heater channels on the car(off by 3")
So my fix for this was to make some angle tubing from some exhaust tubing from the local parts house. I made it at a angles so my heater tube is now straight and not going in at an angle at the car body heater tube or the heat exchanger. I ended up having to take apart the heater tubes and shorten them by about it 1-1/2".
In doing this I noticed that the insulation or what was left of insulation was full of mud clods, dirt, and sand.
I had some leftover sound deadening insulation ( looked like the same type of material. It has an aluminum foil type backing on one side. I used that to replace the original with. I ended up putting the foil backing towards the inside of the tube so hopefully it repels mud, dirt, sand, and water(nothing like an instant steam bath in the car when your wheeling through mud puddles and your heaters are on. ) hopefully my fix will eliminate some or all of the voids in my system giving me better, stronger,hotter heaters.

My question is this:
Do you think they will get too hot and cook (cause fire) the new stuff I put in, or should I put the old back in? I guess I could wrap the inner tube with real aluminum foil if I used the original insulation. Any opinions or advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Thu Mar 24, 2016 10:07 pm

I have never found my heater tubes to get so hot that they could melt anything unless it was thin plastic. If you are worried about heat and sealing out the elements then you could wrap the tubes with woven fiberglass cloth and then cover that with Gorilla tape ( it sticks to anything and is very strong).

Fri Mar 25, 2016 6:55 am

I don't think anything non flammable will lite on fire , it just doesn't get that hot. But I might be concerned about that sound deadening insulation often they use a butyl type material that will "melt", and may get gooy and smell. I suspect the gorilla tape may do the same.

I have a lift kit and I used the stock flexible metal pipe , not the plastic ones, and reused the stock fiberglass/leather like wrap that goes around it. Mine all fit, been awhile but I remember using either the stock pipe, or stock pipe from a different model that was longer , or possibly I found the same material somewhere and cut my own. Doesn't the lift kit actually make the distance shorter? The engine stays in place but the body is raised bringing it closer in line with to the engine heating box? Bla bla bla

Regardless I am wary of the melting goo smell of many of the stickem insulations and would rather wire tie some standard insulation around those pipes

Fri Mar 25, 2016 7:51 am

i think you're right about it melting. not sure if it will get hot enough or not to melt, but after i posted this, i went out to my shop and tried to lite it on fire with a lighter. the padding did not catch fire it just melted. the foil backing never failed. I'm undecided on what to do. maybe I will do like i stated before and run the original packing with some AL foil around the wire mesh to keep it from soaking up mother nature. I will post a drawing of what i did in a few to show you all in case anybody else has this issue.

Fri Mar 25, 2016 5:14 pm

Well I tested the original packing and it caught fire almost instantly! So I'm sticking with the new stuff. Still working on pics for you all.

Tue Mar 29, 2016 12:18 pm

so i finally got some pics uploaded. kind of hard to see, but you get the idea. I did go wheelin last weekend and yes still had a steam bath when i forgot to turn them off before a big mud hole. but they blew twice as hard as before. worked great.
I ended up cutting almost 3" off the passenger side and close to 2" off the drivers side.