Vanagon EuroVan
Previous messageNext messagePrevious in topicNext in topicPrevious by same authorNext by same authorPrevious page (May 1994)Back to main VANAGON pageJoin or leave VANAGON (or change settings)ReplyPost a new messageSearchProportional fontNon-proportional font
Date:         Thu, 26 May 1994 17:58:23 -0500 (CDT)
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         steffens@herbie.unl.edu (Scott Steffens)
Subject:      my beef of the day: vw heaters

In preparation for my westward trip (which I told you all about a week or two ago) I just spent the last several hours getting my heating system going again on my '73 camper. I have a '73 passenger van (which is being parted out in my backyard after it threw a rod through the top of the case...makes getting parts for my new van only a walk to the backyard) so I was somewhat familiar with the VW heating arrangement. My camper didn't have the electric fan and tubing, so I took it out of my old van and installed it. After I did this, there was still no, or very little heat. So doing some poking around, I discovered that when I pulled down the levers on the dash, the cable was so loose it wasn't opening the vents coming out of the heat exchangers (I think this is right. I don't always know my terminology). So anyway, I took a wire hanger and helped it to stay open. Then with the van running I had plenty of heat, even when I turned the electric fan off there was no change in how much air was coming out of the vents. So my question: is the electric fan just something that looks good on paper but really serves no practical purpose? It seems that way to me, and unless I hear otherwise, I might as well take it back out.

Also, the air that was coming out of the vents was a little fumey smelling. It wasn't nearly as bad as on my last van (you could actually see the exhaust coming out of the vents because the exchangers were so rusted away). Anyway, is there anything that could be causing this fumey smell other than the heat exchangers rusting out on me? Is this a big thing to replace these? I know that other vw's that I've been in don't have perfectly clean air coming out of the vents, but this was just a little worse than that. Any help would be appreciated.

Scott Steffens steffens@herbie.unl.edu '73 camper, about half of a '73 van, and as of yesterday, beetleless.


Back to: Top of message | Previous page | Main VANAGON page

Please note - During the past 17 years of operation, several gigabytes of Vanagon mail messages have been archived. Searching the entire collection will take up to five minutes to complete. Please be patient!


Return to the archives @ gerry.vanagon.com


The vanagon mailing list archives are copyright (c) 1994-2011, and may not be reproduced without the express written permission of the list administrators. Posting messages to this mailing list grants a license to the mailing list administrators to reproduce the message in a compilation, either printed or electronic. All compilations will be not-for-profit, with any excess proceeds going to the Vanagon mailing list.

Any profits from list compilations go exclusively towards the management and operation of the Vanagon mailing list and vanagon mailing list web site.