engine heat

It's my first summer using my 74 1/2 B. Is it normal for there to be so much heat in the passenger compartment coming from the engine. Car actually runs very cool. I have a fan and an oil cooler. It just seems as though there is a lot of heat coming from the engine into the passenger compartment. Are there any ways of cutting sown on some of it with heat deflector material or something? I have knobs on the console for air condition.
Did the B ever actually have a/c?

A/c was a dealer installed option, and yes the cockpits get very hot. Many people are putting thin reflective insulation sold at home improvement stores under their carpet

This is how I attacted that problem on my BGT. The insulation is the "Space Aged Insulation" sold my Moss and others.

The same (more or less) insulation is sold cheap at your local home depot as water heater insulation. Kit comes with the reflective tape and everything. Enough to do most of a B for, I think, $20.

Other things to watch for.... is your heater valve off? Are you SURE?
What do the grommets and plugs and stuff look like. Any bum ones will let a surprising amount of engine heat through. What about the seals around the pedal box?

Do you have the under-dash cover thingys? They are insulated, and will help a little more.

I can't swear the under liners will cut down on the heat, since it's usually higher than the heat source.

Insulation is great, and you may want to try painting it with truck bedliner. Remember, the exhaust pipe goes right below where you're sitting.

Another thing mentioned are the grommets. If your car is in the garage, wait until dark then turn out all the lights. With a shop light hanging in the engine compartment, look inside the compartment. Any holes will shine like a christmas light! Make sure they're all plugged. A good source of heat is the transmission tunnel. Insulation will help there.

Also make sure the wiring harness grommet, where it goes into the cockpit is in good shape. A lot of heat can come through there if it's missing, or damaged.

The heater control valve on the side of the cylinder head, that feeds hot coolant to the heater core, often does not completely shut off by using the dash controls. If this is the case, simply reach under the hood and push the valve all the way to the "off" position.

Even with that, a lot of engine heat does come into the passenger area. Your feet are practically next to the engine.

Since your car used to have AC, be sure the holes in the firewall where the AC hoses came through are closed off! My brother-in-law's '79 'B used to have AC and, when it was removed, the PO just left the holes! For something large like that, the aluminum tape with the peel-off backing works great. It may earn any concours points, but it's effective - and it'll stay stuck there...
And Paul is right....those heater valves often don't close completely. Be sure the little lever that rides in the angled slot is pushed all the way forward so that it's in the position closest to the engine.
And....since you're new to these cars....do you have the fresh air vent below the dash open??

Albert, if your car still has the original rubber mats, you can glue the "space age" insulation to the back side, and cut holes for the snaps. I did this under the mats that the seats bolt through also. I also have the thick rubber "MG" floor mats sold by Moss. I insulated the foot wells also, as well as the transmission tunnel. Through high temps and interstate driving to St Louis etc, cabin stayed very comfortable. The only problem I still have is with the exhaulst under my seat, it heats up the shifter hole. Good luck!

Not much to add to all those suggestions. All I can say is that my car is much more comfortable to drive since I put insulation under the carpet (everywhere possible) and replaced old and missing grommets, as suggested. Tremendous difference.

I want to thank all of you for the suggestions. I'll check them all out. It's really great to get this much feedback.

I'm near the point of installing my new vb biscuit interior. These tips are very good. One question. How exactly is this insulation applied? Glued to back side of carpet? Glued to metal floors, tunnel etc? some detailed tips would be great. tia

It's glued (3M Trim Adhesive) to the car first, wherever you have a vertical surface, but only use just enough to get it to stick. (In case you want to pull it up someday.)

I didn't glue the footwell floor pieces at all, making it easy to just pull up and dry, should it get wet.

Here are some detailed tips from Gerry Masterman. (Yes, I keep all such tips that come my way. Chuck, with a little editing you could post this on Shadetree.):

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INSULATION / CARPET INSTALLATION
Gerry Masterman

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I cut the insulation, glued it to the firewall and tranny tunnel, then attached the carpet on top with a bit of glue and then an occasional screw, just to make sure.

The carpet on the vertical area just behind the seats was glued on the top horizontal edge, only. Insulation was glued to the panel first, of course.

The tunnel carpet was a snug fit. It created a hollow spot along the bottom edge of the tunnel at floor level. I pushed the carpet up into this hollow spot and used three self taping screws through the floor to hold everything in place. I did not glue this carpet in place.

I also put longer stainless steel screws through the shifter bezel and boot because of the extra thickness of the insulation. They look as good as the chrome. The longer shift bezel screws were 1/4-28 by 1 1/4" long flathead stainless steel Phillips. They matched the bezel perfectly but were not the slightly domed heads like the originals.

The rear carpet sections went into place, with the inner edge kinda tucked into the hollow spot along the tranny tunnel and floor. I also used a big gasket punch to make 1" holes in both the insulation and the carpet so that the seat rail packing strip spacers will rest directly on the floor.

One job that turned out to be a PITA was locating the screw holes and installing the accelerator pedal stop. I poked a narrow punch through the weld nut from the engine compartment to try to locate the spots for the holes, then used a smaller gasket punch to make these holes. Do this BEFORE you install the carpet instead of being an idiot like me by discovering later that there was no way to install the stop without boltholes!

The rear floor carpets are not attached in any way. The front mats will be held in place with some industrial strength Velcro.

Oh, my installation order went something like this:
-- Sills, glued down
-- Then the rear bulkhead, glued down at just the top edge
-- Then the fender covers, glued with plenty of extra to lay on the battery cover with glue (you can go back and glue this down later)
-- Then the firewall and front tranny cover, glued and screwed
-- Then the main tunnel, no glue just three or four screws into the floor at the bottom edge
-- Then the rear floors, no glue
-- And last, the front floors -- no glue but with the supplied snaps.
-- The battery cover is last of all with snaps. I will use more of the superduty Velcro here.

After you get through, go back and look at how the fender covers extend on the battery cover area. You can trim this but do not trim until you check what will be seen between the battery cover carpet and the fender cover. I cut mine too short and had to get creative with a patch. If I was doing it over I would not trim it at all but leave it unglued so that I could get to the shock fill holes by folding it back. My car was a BGT so I had a lot more pieces to contend with and a few different problems.

I also took this time to repaint my gearshift knob with black paint and added white paint in the numbers and grooves, then chucked it up in my lathe and polished everything to look as new. Polish it like this and because it is spinning it removes the excess white paint and just leaves the paint in the grooves and numbers.

Gerry

Wonderful. Thanks!!