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Progressing steadily back from Norwich (see upholstery) I was aware of a leak in from the hose on the left hand side of the heater (drivers side). This didn't worry me too much as it wasn't particularly fast and I knew there was a spare heater on the shelf at home. Unfortunately the spare heater was in a worse condition than the original - fortunately however it did have an unbroken hose connector so I set about making two into 1.

To start with I removed the heater (easy enough four bolts to the bulk head and the fiddly 2 connections to the heater cable on the left) and connected the 2 hoses together to allow me to continue driving the car, I was keen to make it to Belsay.

With both the heaters removed I set about dismantling both units, first removing the back plates (8 self tapping screws - on the older heater these had to be angle ground off) and then I set about assessing the work from there

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The hose connector feeds onto the Valve and a pipe connecting the radiator - these were a little fiddly to remove and I found it easiest to remove the whole valve (four bolts underneath, 2 bolts holding the valve to radiator pipe and 1 spring attached to the opening flaps on the heater).

With the valve removed I then used a hammer to rotate the end of the valve unit and swap in with its unbroken twin. The whole process was fairly easy but hefty use of gasket sealant was required to make the unit watertight.