Ending unwanted Defender Floor/Tunnel/Cabin Heat Issues - FOR GOOD

Rightio - brought the big rig into work today. Pics frombefore the drive in. Note ambient temperature around 23-24C overnight.

EDIT: Sorry about the orientation of these - vBulletin does something to them.

Couple of things to think about when interpreting pics:
- Note the the TIC spectrum scale changes. This is because my gradient settings are on auto-scale.
Colours and the scale is for that picture only - the scale will change between pics, depending on what is in the field of view. The camera should point out the hottest and coldest pics for reference.

- Reflections off shiny surfaces
Shiny steel surfaces reflect IR and can give misleading results. Check for repeated patterns etc. My leg and jeans can be seen in one of these images.



Overall though - nice cool temps and a good baseline.

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These are the pics after a 35KM drive. Pretty standard Darwin traffic (ie, not much). No real stop and start, I think I stopped at 2 sets of traffic lights the whole way in, so sat 100k/h for 33K's of it, and 60-K's for the last 2 or so until I parked up at the office.

These pics were taken immediately after hopping out.

Again - sorry for the orientation here. I've tried to include shots from the normal camera itself, to assist with orientation and to ID what you're looking at.

Couple of things to think about when interpreting pics:
- Note the the TIC spectrum scale changes. This is because my gradient settings are on auto-scale.
Colours and the scale is for that picture only - the scale will change between pics, depending on what is in the field of view. The camera should point out the hottest and coldest pics for reference.

- Reflections off shiny surfaces
Shiny steel surfaces reflect IR and can give misleading results. Check for repeated patterns etc. This can be seen in the pictures of the floor.

Some observations:
1. The top of the gearbox is MUCH hotter than the bottom
2. Noticeable difference in the heat soak from the floor between drive/passenger
3. Nice to see the handbrake drum is relatively cool

The heat seems to be coming from the front to the back but certainly, the biggest effects for us can be felt in the seat and cubby areas. Im sure the heat further up in the tunnel does absolutely 0 to help the aircon.

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Hi,
How’re your mods coming along?
Really interested in your results!!

Hey Tieds,

Sorry for the length of time between replies - personal life getting in the way of Defender life.

The secondary floor pan really does work. There is a significant difference between it and the passengers side floor.

Last weekend, I ended up using the carbuilders insulation in the gearbox tunnel before heading out on a trip. It has made a VERY substantial difference but still not completely fixed the issue. I'm thinking of piping some cool air into the transmission tunnel, but need to work out the best way to do that.

Will report back.

Thanks for sharing and inspiring. Here's my contribution to the same problem.

[1] I was going to use one of the heater intake scoops, but on the driver's side with a couple of lengths of vacuum pipe tube to run to the transmission tunnel and flush out the hot air, but then I impulse bought a lockable storage box for the wing top at a good price.

[2] I monitor TC temps, and adding an oil cooler to the R380 drops the temp of the TC by about 20.C @ 100kph on a hot day. So adding or upgrading the gearbox oil cooling will contribute toward reaching your goal.

[3] Opening the windows causes a low pressure to form in the cab and that sucks heat in from the seat box, so make sure that's well sealed.

[4] The Wrights Off Road / Exmoor acoustic mat helps too.

[5] I like the idea of the double-skin air-flow floor.

[6] Mine's a pop top camper, so I was thinking about a diesel heater. My thoughts are to replace the standard heater box with a diesel heater, and when I do, that may leave me enough room to plump in some air flow for the transmission tunnel from the current heater intake. Going back to point [1].