Date: Sun, 17 Sep 2000 21:14:17 -0600
Reply-To: "Justin B. Jensen" <jjensen@SPRINTMAIL.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: "Justin B. Jensen" <jjensen@SPRINTMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: heater blower
In-Reply-To: <39C532DE.11517.24E57F@localhost>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
The clips are available from VW but as Howard mentions the battle is trying
to find a parts man at VW that cares enough to assist. You are in for a
real treat when you try and ascertain the part number and availability of
the ballast for the blower - it took my local VW man a good hour to figure
that out (I can research this # from my records if anyone needs it). Along
those lines, I would not go to the trouble of cracking the air box without
replacing the ballast; simply too much work to not replace this part. I
moved my ballast to the front of the van adjacent the ballast for the
radiator fan so I can service it should I have to in the future without the
pleasure of tearing the dash out.
Justin Jensen
SLC Utah
-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM]On Behalf
Of Howard Fleming
Sent: Sunday, September 17, 2000 8:09 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Re: heater blower
Strangly enough I am in the process of doing this at the moment for
my 85 Vanagon (daily driver, once I get it back together).
Briefly you need to remove the instrument cluster, the glove box, the
dash and steering wheel to get to the heater box. (When you remove
the dash, be carefull with the heater controls, it is "very" easy to
break the plastic pieces that hold the panel on.) A picture of the
dash with the dashboard removed from our 84 Westy is here:
http://www.moosebird.com/vanity/underthedash.JPG
Once you have the above out of the way (and it may be a good time
to buy the Bently manual, if just for the pictures), you will need to
remove the heater box (or at least I did on the 85 Vanagon that I
have). 6 screws attach the heater box to the vanagon. Remove and
plug the heater lines, and unhook the wiring for the heater motor,
and you should be able to remove the heater box to separate it to
replace the motor (I bought my from the bus depot
(www.busdepot.com), but other list vendors may have them also
(www.vanagain.com?).
The heater box is glued together (at least mine is), has 2 screws in
the top, and may also have some clips holding it together. Using an
utility knife, I was able to cut the tabs that were holding the case
together. After cutting the tabs at the seams, I was able to take a
screw driver and "carefully" break the case apart. Once you remove
the top, the blower motor is fully exposed.
The VW part number for the clips to hold the heater box together
"should be" 321 819 059 (from the ETKA5 cdrom). (You probably will
need the number, since the VW dealers I have asked around here for
the clips does not have a clue what I was talking about......).
The motor has foam rubber strips sealing it to the blower housing, a
hardware store should have the same sort of thing (Frost King, etc),
that should be close enough to replace it with.
In my case, the motor wiring connectors are different from the new
blower to the old, which I have not fixed yet, and I also need to see if
I can order the above clips, otherwise I will need to attempt to reglue
the case back together.
This is as far as I have gotten to date. It took me about 1.5 hours to
remove the dashboard and the heater box, probably will take "much"
longer to put it back together properly.
Will give an update if requested later once I have it back together.
Good luck!
Misc thoughts. If you need to replace your master brake cylinder,
slave cylinder (if you have a manual transmission, or the radio ant,
NOW is the time to do it......once you have the dashboard out.
Howard
hfleming@moosebird.com
On 17 Sep 2000, at 16:35, Michael Samson wrote:
> The heater blower in my '88 appears to be
> inoperative. I've only had time to do a basic and superficial diagnosis;
> fuse is OK and there is current at the appropriate terminals on the back
> of the blower switch. I haven't had the opportunity to secure a Bentley
> manual yet- so could someone give me an idea of how much of a task it is
> to replace a blower motor in one of these things?, i.e., location of
> motor, how much disassembly, time involved, etc.
hfleming@moosebird.com Alexandria, VA hfleming@moosebird.com
99 EuroVan MV - 97 Cabrio - 85 Vanagon - 84 Westy
84 Vanagon GL (spare parts that turned into a project)
1945 Cletrac AG