Date:         Sun, 10 Apr 2011 17:24:15 -0700
Reply-To:     Rocket J Squirrel <camping.elliott@GMAIL.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Rocket J Squirrel <camping.elliott@GMAIL.COM>
Subject:      Well. THAT wasn't a pain or anything!
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And I'm still not sure it's fixed.

My reader will recall that I needed to replace the driver/passenger
heater box footwell flap control cable. Convention wisdom has it the
dash needs to be pulled to do this, but some have done this without
pulling the dash and were kind enough the give me some hints.

Broke a ventilation control lever pulling on it to get it off, the other
three came off somewhat easily though with sudden releases, one of which
yanked the ventilation control panel right off the dash, breaking one of
its little mounting studs. Oh well, repairable. Didn't need the
bottommost lever anyway, since it does nothing of use in my Westy.

Anyhow, the cable was completely bent, as if the lever was trying to
push it into its housing against great resistance. After some
considerable effort and colorful language, my son and I managed to fish
the replacement cable into place, only to discover that, it, too, wanted
to bend when the lever was pushed in the driver's direction.

I fiddled with the arm that turns the axle which flaps the two footwell
flaps and found that if the axle were slid toward the passenger side, it
rotated easily, but when slid toward the driver's side, it caught.

I posted a request for help getting the heater cover off, and Chris
(JordanVW) helped by telling me that the cover comes off simply by
pulling it toward the rear of the van, and so it did. This is the brown
plastic version which is brittle so I was afraid it would break, but it
came off pretty easily.

We found that the flap on the driver's side was scraping the inside of
the little duct that it rotates in, the corner of the flap was catching
in the seam on the inside of the driver side of the duct, which was
mashed in a bit, had a crack.

No idea how that got mashed in.

The best we could do was wedge a short stick of half inch square wood
stock lengthwise across the opening to force the side out a bit. Even
so, if the axle slid to the driver side, the flap would still hang.

I don't understand what prevents the axle from sliding from side to
side, causing the flaps to scrape. Could not figure out a way to bias
the axle toward the passenger side so the flap would clear the seam on
the  inside of the vent box until I hit upon the idea of bending the
control cable toward the passenger side a bit to apply some sideways
pressure.

That should work, at least until I take the whole dash off in a month or
so to do a heater box rebuild.

Has anyone else had a problem with flaps scraping the sides of the
vents?

--
Rocky J Squirrel
'84 Westfalia: Mellow Yellow ("The Electrical Banana")
'74 Westrailia: (Ladybug Trailer company, San Juan Capistrano, Calif.)
Bend, OR
KG6RCR