For anyone who might remotely care to see the insides of the 63-66 full size heater control,
Wondering what's behind the two little windows? You know you are! Well, wonder no more ladies and gentlemen, I shall reveal the truth!
That mysterious fan high, med, low, off display is a drum, turned with a little string that fits on a pulley on the drum. That string goes out back through a ferrule the back casing, makes a 90° left turn over to a pulley on the fan switch shaft.
The groundbreaking high tech bar graph heat display is spun with a little rod that goes out through the back onto a slider mechanism, worm gear driven by turning the heat knob. The slider attaches to the cable from the blend door in the heater box. Both drums share a return spring between them on a shared shaft.
My fan display string broke if you're wondering why I would even bother doing this. I hope I satisfied your curiosity. Cheers.
Broken string. Pulley on the fan display pointed out to the right.
Fan switch. Pulley (red dot). String pass through ferrule, (green dot).
Whenever I look at these mundane automobile components, I can't help but wonder just how many were produced. Had to be in the hundreds of thousands. This exact kind of thing kept a lot of people employed back then. Pretty amazing in my mind.
Looks like all FS Pontiac's 63-66 used this style of control. Maybe exactly the same all years?
Interestingly, the USA cars had pushbutton Defrost/Air controls, the Canadian cars got the levers.
I think the USA cars being higher end, were trying to make that control resemble the pushbutton radio accompanying it in the dash. Air cars, the orange bar graph drum also had the blue cold bars.
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65 Laurentian post, 67 Grande Parisienne 4 door HT.
Those heater controls were a very cool(no pun intended) feature that made a pretty boring part of a car kind of space age.
The only neater thing I remember from the cars my family had was my uncle's 56 Studebaker with a rotating drum speedometer that looked like a tv screen. The numbers rotated and as the speed went up they changed colours so that when you were going over 60 mph they were red. They didn't actually change they were just printed in different colours.
Come to think of the only reason I really like 66 Pontiacs more than 65's is that the gauges looked like little tv screens too.
Its amazing what a little bling like that will do to get a guy to buy that particular car (as his kid point out how neat the gadgets were)
The makers were quite astute (sneaky even) about stuff like that. I seem to recall reading somewhere that on some cars if you bought the cheap model the steering wheel wore through to black rubber quite quickly to remind you that the car was wearing out and that you were a really cheap guy.
Do you know any watch repairmen? This looks right up their alley!
Actually, an old radio repair person. The old radio dials had all kinds of pulleys/stings/springs.
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Prince Edward Island
'64 Parisienne CS "barn find" - last on the road in '86 ... Owner Protection Plan booklet, original paint, original near-mint aqua interior, original aqua GM floor mats, original 283, factory posi, and original rust.
It'll be an easy fix guys. Just have to find the right kind of string. Dead simple though.
Says the guy who never touched an automatic transmission in his life and decided "What the heck, I can rebuild this turbo 400. Why would I need a skilled technician to do it?"
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1966 Strato Chief 2 door, 427 4 speed, 45,000 original miles
1966 Grande Parisienne, 396 1 of 23 factory air cars
