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Date:         Thu, 18 Jun 1998 19:33:55 -0700
Reply-To:     Malcolm Holser <mholser@ADOBE.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <Vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         Malcolm Holser <mholser@ADOBE.COM>
Subject:      Re: gas heaters
Comments: To: Vanagon@VANAGON.COM, smitht@UNB.CA

I just paid $35 for a complete BN4 heater, and got it fired up this evening. Noisy, initially smoky, and *really* cranks out the heat. The temperature control actually won't let the burner stay on very long, and the thing cycles burning for about 20 seconds, and then just blowing for about 90 seconds. After turning it off. it blows until the whole heater is stone cold.

When finally running, it was very clean burning, but still noisy. It uses a lot of electricity -- big blower, glow plug, two electric fuel pumps and a coil/sparkplug. If I decide to install this in my Westy, I'll probably have to modify its behaviour -- blow hot for a bit, shut off the gas, and blow only until it is safely cooled and most of the residual heat has been collected.

Unlike the BA6 that came on later buses, this cannot be mounted under the bus, but the whole heater is much simpler and more compact. An even more compact unit is the BA4 heaters that came stock on Type4 VWs (like the 412). I also paid about $35 each for two of these, and they are identical in operation to the later BA6 so you can use your Bentley to service it. These are flat units -- shorter, wider and thinner than the BA6 (and less powerful). They need a circulation fan, which the BN4 does not.

I was so thrilled when it finally fired up! I had to rebuild both fuel pumps and the relays. I guess you get what you pay for. Now if I can figure out the silly Webasto heater I have. Nice unit, but pretty confusing right now. No documents, of course (I traded a BA4 for it).

Malcolm


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