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Date:         Tue, 7 Jan 1997 23:30:24 -0500
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         "lbart" <lbart@preferred.com>
Subject:      speedometer noise and other ramblings

Hey all, I've been noticing something curious about my speedometer lately. When it gets really cold outside, sometimes the speedometer will make a gravelly sort of noise. The frequency of the noise is directly proportional to the speed indicated on the speedometer, and seems loudest between 25 and 45 mph. The noise does not affect speedometer or odometer function, everything works fine, the needle doesn't wobble or anything. The sound appears to be coming from the head unit itself rather than the cable, it sounds almost like a plasticky sort of noise. Any ideas? It doesn't seem to be causing any problems, but I figure it can't be helping anything. Is my speedometer getting ready to conk out? It only makes the noise when it's really cold and even then not all the time. It's very intermittent and I have no way of producing it at will.

This is an '81, by the way.

I've also noticed some strangeness with my heater flapper boxes. I'll post this to type2 as well because more people there have experience with heater flapper boxes :) . On the Vanagon, there is a lever on the dash which slides side to side for amount of hot air. This lever is connected to a cable which apparently splits into two cables, and each one leads to a heater flapper box. The cable attaches to a lever on the box which moves the flapper inside to determine how much hot air is let into the main duct that goes up front. I've noticed that when I move the lever to the left, which is the heat off position, the heater flapper boxes don't close all the way, i.e. warm air can still be felt coming into the cabin. I can get under the car an grab the lever and close it the rest of the way and it will stay there but it won't close all the way if I only use the lever on the dash. I've never messed with these cables on my other air-cooled VWs but I assume there must be some kind of adjustment, but looking under there I'm not clear what it is. Has anyone had to adjust these? I figure it won't be a problem until summer when I really won't need that heat coming in, but I'd like to get it working properly.

Speaking of adjustment, is there any way to adjust the cables that control which vents the heated air comes out of? On the Vanagon there is a single lever that lets the driver switch air between the front and rear floor vents, the front floor vents only, or the defroster vents only. As i move the lever to the defroster position (far right), the lever stops about an inch short of the stop on the right side. I get plenty of air from the defroster vents but I can't seem to get it to the point where the rear floor vent closes and only the front floor vents are open. It seems like it's either all the floor vents or the defroster vents, with no in-between. Anyone know how to adjust this? I'm gonna have to take a look at Haynes and see what's going on with this system. Should have messed with this last week when it was in the 60s, now it's in the 30s :( .

Thanks for any and all help, Sean


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