Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2000 19:55:15 EDT
Reply-To: Ssittservl@aol.com
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: S Sittservl <Ssittservl@aol.com>
Subject: Re: Leaky A/C in an '89 Westy
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> Date: 7/31/00 5:37:47 PM Central Daylight Time
> From: TPenberthy@creativepro.com (Penberthy, Thomas)
>
> We're cruising into a left-hand turn at the bottom of a hill when she's
> doused with a stream of cold water raining down from above (she was in the
> back seat).
>
> I know enough about A/C to understand that it's condensation accumulation,
> but I don't know enough about Westy's to know where the run-off is supposed
> to be going, and where it could be clogged up.
>
> A separate issue with my A/C: I'm noticing little foam bits on the floor of
> the back of the van sometimes after running it. Is that normal, or is it
> something I should be worrying about?
I ran into both of these problems on my '88 Westfalia.
The water leaks are typically caused by one (or more) of three things:
(1) Drain hose disconnected in overhead compartment.
(2) Clogged drain tube.
(3) Wind blowing up through drain tube while driving, keeping water
from flowing down it.
I've experienced (1) and (2), and been told that (3) can happen.
If you remove the cold air return panel that's in the rear shelf
of the overhead compartment (remove the two obvious screws),
you'll be able to see the silver-finned evaporator, and a black
plastic tray underneath it to catch the condensation. There
are drain hoses on the left and right of this tray, held on with hose
clamps. The one on the right also has an extra couple of clamps,
because it goes through a plastic elbow. You might be able to
see these with a flashlight, but space is really tight. If leaks here
are your problem, you might just be able to reach in and fix them,
but you'll probably have to drop the A/C housing at least part-way -
see the Bentley manual.
The hoses run behind the black plastic vents that are behind the
rear windows - if you remove the vents, you can see the hoses
easily. From here, they cleverly drop the condensation water
onto metal trays in the engine compartment, ensuring that you
always have pools of water to encourage rust. (Though I haven't
run into any actual rust as a result of this, it seems an odd
engineering decision, though no odder than many others on
the Vanagon - like hanging a water-producing evaporator
over people's heads in a nearly-impossible-to-access
wooden compartment, for example.)
At the end of each hose there's a little rubber fitting
that's supposed to act as a valve, preventing
problem (3) - it's supposed to let water out, and keep
air from coming in. It clogs easily. You can slide it
off the tube (twisting a bit if it's stuck), and clean it out.
You can also try blowing into the tube, to make sure
it's not clogged further up. After I had repeated
problems with mine, I took off one tube's valve, and
left the other on. I figured that gave me the best of
both worlds - I had one tube that would never clog,
and one that wouldn't be subject to the air blow-back
problem.
Now for the black foam. The evaporator is wrapped
with a foam "blanket" that deteriorates after a while -
particularly, I think, if it's gotten wet (because of clogged
drain tubes, etc.) I've heard a few theories as to why
this blanket is there, but very little agreement; no one I
heard from thought it was necessary, though. (That's right -
it's failure-prone, extremely difficult to get to, and serves
no discernable purpose.)
When my A/C started blowing foam bits (and eventually
chunks), clueless VW mechanics kept telling me to wait
for it to stop on its own, or would try to convince me that
it really wasn't a problem. Neither was true, of course,
and the problem got steadily worse. The VW service
places I talked to were frightened of taking down the
A/C housing, so I did it myself. There are good instructions
in the Bently manual. It's a long, unpleasant job. Putting it
back is longer and more unpleasant. But, once I had it
down, it was easy to snip the bailing wire that held the
foam blanket in place and remove it.
While I was up there, I did a lot of other work on the air
conditioner - mostly weather stripping, and generally
tightening things up. The multiple water leaks up there
had caused a lot of the existing weather stripping (such
as there was - there wasn't as much as there should have
been) to deteriorate, which caused the system to be noisy
and to leak air. I was able to improve air flow - and effective
cooling - significantly, and the A/C also runs noticably quiter
now. There's a short discription and a not-very-helpful picture
or two on my web site at http://members.aol.com/ssittservl.
(Unfortunately, I didn't think to take much in the way of
pictures at the time.)
One other thought: I wonder if it might be possible to
clip the bailing wire and remove the foam blanket via the
cold air return panel, without dropping the housing.
You would probably have trouble getting the blanket
off from around the evaporator fins without shredding it
further, but it might be worth a try anyway.
Good luck!
-Steven Sittser
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