I decided that a heater and defroster are needed in the Lancia but instead of hooking up the factory system, I upgraded to a Vintage Air Gen-II Heater kit. The blower assembly is significantly smaller and utilizes servos to control the heat and air output, much like a modern car. This flexibility allows me to place the controls wherever electrical wiring can reach, unlike the factory unit’s control cables.
The entire assembly fits neatly under the dash, and I made a custom bracket to adapt the heater to the factory mounting studs on the firewall. Additionally, I printed a plastic duct to utilize the stock fresh air intake location under the cowl. I’m currently reprinting the duct with a flange to seal it against the underside of the cowl, similar to the factory setup.
With the dashboard removed, I’m also installing the new defroster ducts and ensuring the dashboard top panel fits better to the body for a more polished appearance. Pictures in my next update.
My Stradale 
I liked the Vintage air products and they’re so much better than the original stuff was. I looked at those for our VW Bus and for the GMC RV. I never pulled the trigger. I’m not sure if I’m happy or sad about that. At that point in the upgrades is when I decided to sell each one which I’m not unhappy about 🙂 Good call.
Excellent vent design. What material did you go with to print? PETG? ASA? ABS?
Just the cost to pressure test and professionally refurbish the heater core was almost the same as the VA heater kit and there was a 6 week lead time. Smaller size, modern controls, the VA kit was a no brainer.
I use PLA for prototyping but the finished parts are ASA. I found PLA Pro and PLA+ to also have much better strength than PLA so I’m using those for parts that don’t see UV exposure. Can’t remember why I chose ASA over ABS.
Sorry to hear you don’t have the bus. My family had a ’66 two tone VW bus and I still have a fondness for those cars. But the reality of ownership might be very different.
The bus became just something to maintain instead of having fun with it. I loved it and enjoyed it, learned a lot. It was time to pass it on to someone else. We also sold our super beetle because we weren’t driving it and it was just maintenance. We have the Promaster van that we’ve built up as a camper and all our energy and money is being put into that.
I’ve never printed with ASA but heard it’s good. You may have problems with PLA with heat. It tends to get soft at lower temps. I usually do PETG for things that are in cars. I think ASA is just as good.
I think I understand. When I started this project, it was more about the build process. A lot of time has passed since then, life caught up with me, and now it’s more about the experiences I can have from ownership: track days, meetups, road trips, etc.
People do some amazing things with those van conversions.