interesting thread. replaced my 'outer' tubes ? from Wins ages ago.have not stripped heater box so have no idea about any 'elbows' internally. wondering if I ought to have strip unit out ! but no leaks and all seems to be working Ok so I am using the old adage of if its working well..leave it alone.
I have watched a couple of the threads on the "internal" heater elbows and the different solutions people have come up with. I was faced with repairing the heater in my car and the inner elbows were completely deteriorated and any water would flow straight through the heater box and not be diverted to the external elbows. I decided I would try and 3D print replacements. The elbow shape is very straightforward and it was easy to build the 3D model. One elbow is a mirror image of the other, which also simplifies things. I printed using Ninjaflex filament. It is flexible and resistant to the types of oils, etc. that the material may be exposed to. The photo of the old and new elbows is attached.The resulting elbows were flexible enough to insert through the holes in the sheet metal fairly easily. The 3D matrix is slightly porous so I decided to use a thin film of silicon on the inner surface of the elbow. These should conduct the rain water to the external elbows I purchased. Everything looks good. I will see how they stand the test of time.
Printing locally is probably the most cost effective solution. My printing cost was $20 (Cdn.) per elbow. I am not planning on having any more made and shipping them. I am willing to share the 3D CAD file with anyone who would like it. There are lots of companies who will print given an ".STL" file in a filament material of your choice.
I am willing to share the model. It is very simple. No royalty required. The file is for the one side of the heater. Anyone using it will have to ask the folks doing the production to mirror image the 3D for the other side of the heater. As .STL files are not an allowable file type for this forum, I have renamed it ts have a .PDF extension. Anyone downloading the file to use will have to rename the file to have the proper .stl file extension.
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