Date:         Thu, 23 Apr 1998 23:45:23 -0400
Reply-To:     Ed McLean <mcleans@EARTHLINK.NET>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <Vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         Ed McLean <mcleans@EARTHLINK.NET>
Subject:      Re: '86 Fried AC/switch-solutions??
Comments: To: Vanagon@vanagon.com
Comments: cc: pickering.14@OSU.EDU
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Hi Folks,

Eric Pickering wrote:  "The AC in my Westy didn't turn on last year...I
found that one of the terminals for the rotary knob (inner knob) that
controls fan speed of the AC was totally fried/burnt off."

I've had exactly the same problem on my '86 Westi and I posted a note
about two years ago to the list.  The response was that my fan was
probably drawing too much current and was going to burn out soon.  It's
still running.  I agree that it is probably a marginal design,
considering the current draw.  I believe the reason the new switch gets
hot is that the overheated wire terminals do not make as good of a
connection as the new condition terminals do.  I replaced the original
switch on two sucessive years and then replaced the fan section with two
50-amp toggle switches on the dash.  The higher capacity switches worked
great and the fan ran at slightly faster speeds because of the loss of
the voltage drop because of the resistance in the rotary switch.  When I
added the second AC unit in the dash I made the ultimate repair by
adding two 40-amp relays and a 50-amp relay (for high fan speed) in the
rear AC cabinet to carry the current to the rear fan.  The current
supplying the relays and thus the fan motor comes via a fused heavy
gauge wire from the junction box in the engine compartment.  A heavy
ground wire was added.  The switching voltage is provided by an original
type switch (Westi type with fan and thermostat in one unit).  This gave
higher fan speed on all three speeds because the considerable voltage
loss from the wiring to the dash-mounted switch is gone.  Low speed is
now equal to the medium fan speed of before.   High speed is much higher
than before.
I would highly recommend the modification with either the toggle
switches or the relays.

Ed McLean
'86 Westi