Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 10:47:19 -0600
Reply-To: Jim Felder <felder@KNOLOGY.NET>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Jim Felder <felder@KNOLOGY.NET>
Subject: Re: Heater Control Question
In-Reply-To: <000001c73cad$5496db90$0200a8c0@Dell1>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed
You're in luck, I just did this job yesterday (or close enough for
practical purposes).
First, figure out which lever it is. If it's the usual suspect, yes,
it goes to the valve below.
You don't have to do too much to get a look at it. First thing I'd do
is remove the faceplace over the lever mechanism. Start by pulling
the fan switch know straight out and lay it aside. With a pair of
curved longnose pliers, grab each lever by the shaft (don't hook the
"handle," you'll likely pull it off) and pull the shaft partway off
of the lever. Don't try to pull all the way out until you get the
faceplate loosened. Take a knife with a wide blade and work it in
between the faceplate and the dash, wiggling gently to pry the face
loose. There are two press fit pins that hold the faceplate in, those
are located in the lower left and upper right corners of the
faceplate. Once the faceplate is loosened, used the pliers to fully
remove the handles top to bottom (or reverse, just remember which)
and arrange them in order across the dash. Otherwise you'll waste a
lot of time trying to get them to not interfere with each other on
reassembly.
Now you can see the problem, but you can't do anything about it, if
it's the heater control cable, until you remove the clamp at the
left, but you have to pull the instrument panel out (five minutes,
email me if you want those steps) to get a wrench on the 7mm screw
that clamps the cable.
Once this is done, a pair of longnose pliers will reach in and turn
the dogleg on the end of the wire out of the lever (the second one
from the top).
Now comes the time to assess your problem. Why is the wire bending,
where is the resistance coming from?
Jack up one side of the front so you can get under the car. Remove
the spare so the carrier hangs down. Get something to use for a
pillow and a flashlight. You can reach up in there next to the
shifter box no problem, and you can get the wire off and back on with
some trouble, but it may be easier if you remove the glove box and
remove the end of the hose that holds the heater valve in place. This
just takes a few minutes (pop out the glove box and then pull off the
heater vent cover for full access, then you'll see everything that's
going on and where it goes). I can send pictures if you need them.
You'll lose less than a cup of coolant,. What you have to do is go
underneath and loosen a lower connection on the lower hose out of the
valve. Then the lost coolant will spill outside the car, not inside
it. Now go back into the glove box opening and withdraw the hose.
Make sure you get the right one, it's the hardest of the two to get
to but no big deal.
This last step previously described, lowering the heater valve
assembly, is only really necessary for your convenience if the clip
for the other end of the cable is stuck, or if you find upon removal
of the lower cable end that you actually have to replace the heater
valve. If you wiggle the valve lever and find it is good shape and
not binding internally in the valve, then it's the way the cable is
formed, or bent, or crudded up, or as in my case the cable mounting
bracket on the heater valve assembly had bent under pressure from
being wrongly aligned and had cause the cable to bind.
Fix your problem down at the heater valve, and you'll have no
problems up at the dash levers.
Let me save you another bucket of trouble: the upper end of the cable
should be positioned flush with the right hand edge of its bracket
when the clamp is refastened. Otherwise, you'll never get all the
heat you could be getting, or else you'll never get completely cool
air in the summer. And don't tighten the 7mm clamping screw any more
than ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY. Doing so can crush the cable housing, then
you'll have to replace it for sure.
It helps, while you are in there and are handy with multiple pairs of
pliers, to tidy up the bends in the cable end doglegs. The better-
formed they are, the more foolproof your fix will be.
And if you do need to replace the cable, it's trivial once you're in
the middle of the above process. It took me one hour and fifteen
minutes, start to finish. Be prepared for a lot of climbing around,
but there's nothing particularly difficult except dealing with the
heater valve up in the recesses of its mounting spot.
Johnson's has the valve and the cable, the dealer would probably have
to order them.
Jim
On Jan 20, 2007, at 10:09 AM, Allen Hill wrote:
> Greetings,
> My daughter called me and said that one of the heater control
> levers on her
> 1986 Vanagon was stuck in the middle (about half way over) and
> would not
> move either way. I am assuming that the cable is bent over or
> something
> like that. What I was wondering was how much of a job is it to R
> & R the
> heater control from the dash and replace whatever cable is bad.
> Will the
> control unit assembly come out by itself, or do I need to go to the
> extreme
> of removing the dash assembly or other parts first?
>
> Thanks all,
>
> Route 66 Rider!
> Ramon Hill
> Live Long and Be Free
>
