Date: Sun, 3 Mar 1996 16:09:59 +0000
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From: "Harry Yates" <hyates@bcit.bc.ca>
Subject: '90 Westy Fridge Service & Rust (long)
Hi Everyone. For about a month now, I've been working on a little
project that kind of grew a little bit. Our fridge wasn't the
happiest last summer, with poor cooling, and the piezo working when
the burner is on pilot, etc. So, I figured I'd get the poor thing
serviced before the 1996 camping season.
I removed the fridge as per the instructions in Bentley. It actually
came out quite easily. The Bentley missed two procedures. The first
one, should have been to burn off the gas in the lines first!! The
second procedure they missed was that the flue assembly on the
outside has to have the outer cover, protective shield, AND the two
machine screws removed so that the manifold can be removed from its
mount. It took about an hour to remove the fridge in its entirety.
The dirt at the back of the fridge was incredible. Our van is air
conditioned, so I guess most of that dust gets sucked in when camped.
It took 3/4 hour to clean the dirt off the fins, and controls
afterwards. I cleaned up inside the fridge cavity in the cabinet
with Armor-All Cleaner, and got it looking like new in minutes.
I took the fridge down to a local RV place that deals with Dometic
fridges. He cleaned out the chimney and burner assembly. Adjusted
the flame, and checked all the controls. He even lubed the air pump.
I picked up the fridge in 2 days, and paid $37.50 CDN for the work.
It was scale on the burner that was causing my intermittent peizo problem
on pilot... the scale on the burner was obstructing the flame. No parts were
needed.
Now the fun part. While the fridge was out, I was checking around
the cutout for the flue vent. I removed the flue baseplate, and was
pleased to see that Westfalia had tarred around the cutout. Upon
closer inspection, I found that the tar was brown in some spots.
Like, I don't like this. I grab a nice sharp nail and start
scratching away at the tar, and was amazed as to what I saw.. I had a
0.5 cm X 1.5 cm rust patch. Hmmmm.... so I started chipping away at
the tar around the perimeter of the entire opening, and found
numerous little rust spots. After getting the spots down to bare
metal, I sanded, cleaned, primed, and painted the areas. There was
also rust on the inside of the opening. This was a pain as the
cabinets were still in place in the van. I managed to do what I had
to inside the van as well. I bought some 3M Rubberized Undercoating
(thanks to Dan Houg's advice) and sprayed some in a plastic margerine
container, and brushed it around the perimeter of the opening, and
where the entire rubber gasket of the fridge flue vent goes.
After that repair was complete, I started working on the black
accessory boxes. I removed all the boxes, and was *amazed* as to
what I saw. Same as the fridge flue vent. Again, as the cabinets
were still in place, I could see from the inside of the van that
there was corrosion in place, but it was difficult to get to.
Canadian models have the 110 volt plug down below, and that was easy
to fix. The pressurized watermain was relatively easy to get at, but
the fresh water tank fill was impossible to access from the inside of
the van without removing the cabinets... and I wasn't going to do
that! I was able to clean up the rust on the inside from the outside
be feel and a small mirror. It was tedious work, but I believe that
I have got it all (I hope!).
Before reassembly, I cleaned up the foam gaskets from the black boxes
with an old toothbrush, and put a dab of silicone sealer on each
screw hole in the sheetmetal, and around the perimeter of the black
boxes. I had purchased some stainless steel screws to replace the
stock plated ones. I also silicone sealed around the perimter of
the cutouts on the inside for all cutout except the fresh water one.
Today I put in the fridge. I soap tested the gas joints for both the
stove and fridge. Everything went together easily. Once the propane
line was bled off, the fridge started right up :)
Conclusion. I think it is worth the exercise to do this. Thanks to
Dan Houg for many ideas and tips regarding this exercise. I didn't
add any more fans to my setup, but I did oil/clean the little one
that's there. The fridge is going to work more efficiently, and the
van isn't going to rust (at least from there!!). Please note, that
this van is parked 4 months of the year, and has never seen road
salt. It is always garaged (except when camping), and is well
polished/cleaned. I would like to advise that anybody with a camper
to check for corrosion under the accessory cutouts in the body of
your vehicle. It can save some grief for you later on if you catch a
problem now.
Hope this helps,
Harry.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Harry Yates, Burnaby, BC, Canada
'90 Syncro Westfalia email:hyates@bcit.bc.ca
'87 Golf Diesel WWW:http://www.bcit.bc.ca/~hyates
| 
