Vintage Air Unit Not Blowing Air

Few people know less about this than I do, so here goes... I have a '40 Chevy 2 door sedan that came with a Vintage Air Heater/Air Conditioner when I purchased it about 8 years ago. I recently had the car painted so it had to be disassembled. Not sure if the a/c unit was removed or not. I do know the heater worked great before I had the car painted but when I took it home from the painter I noticed the heater would blow hot air just fine for about 10 seconds then the air coming from the ducts would slow to almost nothing. If I turned the fan off then turned it back on again it would do the same thing...blow hot air for 5-10 seconds then gradually slow to just a trickle. Is this a vacuum issue? Or is there maybe a door that's closing? I don't even know if this unit is a vacuum operated one? I visited the trouble shooting section of the Vintage Air website but it didn't address this issue. Anyone have any suggestions? Thanks in advance.


Tom

Could be a ground issue, especially if the car was just painted....Perhaps there's a ground wire not connected or the grounding point has paint on it and is not making a good ground causing the heater motor to get hot and shut down.... Most of the Vintage Air units I've ever messed with have either electric or manual controls, doubt that you have any vacuum controls....

wonder if the blower has more than one speed and a resister is going bad??

My first impression was bad bushings in the motor

You need to determine if the fan is maintaining speed.

If the fan is holding speed, then it's a duct problem

probably a painters tach rag

Well, you mentioned that it was working fine before it was painted so there's no reason to think that you have an equipment failure. There's something that either didn't get put back right after paint, or like DaveS mentioned they could have painted a surface where it previously got a good ground and doesn't now. VA doesn't use vacuum dampers, to my knowledge. They use electric.

First thing I'd do is go back to he painter and find out just exactly what he took apart to do his painting, and see if he has any ideas what might be causing the problem. If that doesn't pan out I'd figure out exactly which VA unit you have, and download their detailed instructions for installing the unit. VA has great instructions, and if you track through all of the steps, including verifying all of your ducting and wiring, I bet you find your problem. If not, VA also does a great job with tech support via the phone. Call them up, but not before going through and doing a thorough check of your system.