Date:         Thu, 1 Apr 2004 16:10:51 -0500
Reply-To:     Tolga Morawski <tolga@MAC.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Tolga Morawski <tolga@MAC.COM>
Subject:      front heat box foam, was 'sound deadening'
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"

Hi there,
  I recently re-did my heater box foam and also had a hard time finding a
suitable replacement but did find a most perfect one with some help from
a friend.  We went to home depot and picked up a roll of aluminum backed
adhesive foam.  It comes in small 3-4" rolls of a 15" roll (which I
bought).  It's perfect, you simply need to peel away the aluminum from
the foam and it's almost exactly like the original foam in height and
density.  The adhesive backing also nicely solves the problem of ahering
it to the flaps, just be sure you clean the flaps of all the old foam and
adhesive beforehand.  I will say it takes some practice cutting the stuff
to the size you want but once you do it's a good fix for the problem.
  I've seen the foam I used at other places now besides Home Depot,
including Loew's home improvement stores and True Value.

Hope this helps those of you doing the blower motor project!

Take Care,
   Tolga

>Date:    Wed, 31 Mar 2004 21:05:14 -0800
>From:    James V <tornadored@EARTHLINK.NET>
>Subject: Re: sound deadening
>
>On 3/31/04 8:45, "Warren.K.Lail-1" <wlail@OU.EDU> wrote:
>
>> I'm going to have to pull my dash soon to repair or replace a noisy fan
>motor.
>> How big of a job is pulling the dash?  I think I'll follow your lead and
>> install some sound deadening in there as well.
>
>Well, I don't think pulling the dash was so bad.  It's definitely a big job
>time-wise, but nothing all that difficult.  (I took notes and labeled
>everything).
>
>But, the heater box overhaul has proved to be a much bigger pain than I
>anticipated.  It's always the little things that get me... and I had a hard
>time just getting it open.  About half the plastic weld popped fairly
>easily, a few required a little extra work.  But there were about 6 that
>were unbelievably stubborn.  Lots of pounding, prying, and hacking.  YMMV.
>
>Once upon, replacing the blower motor is simple.
>
>But the next snag has been finding suitable replacement foam for the heater
>control flap seals.  I hadn't planned on necessarily doing this, but upon
>seeing their condition (crumbly), I opted to. (all the banging on the box
>trying to get it open couldn't have helped).  But it's been a couple weeks
>and I haven't found material that will work.
>
>As a few mentioned to me, it's important to get proper foam, otherwise the
>flaps won't seal well.  I'm going to try a few more options, but may end up
>reverting to the original, or a mediocre replacement I found.
>
>Good luck,
>
>James V
>90 Carat