Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1999 17:30:39 -0400
Reply-To: David Beierl <synergx@IBM.NET>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: David Beierl <synergx@IBM.NET>
Subject: Re: replacing heater blower!
In-Reply-To: <19990629161117.A22981@liberty.mas.vcu.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
At 16:11 6/29/99 -0400, Dan Resler wrote:
>He said you basically have to dismantle the whole dashboard to get it
>out. My question - is this a job a novice DIY person could pull off on
>a Saturday without (expensive) special tools? Or is it best left to
>the experts? Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.
It's a horrible PITA and you really want two people to actually lift it in
and out of the van. But otherwise it's not too exotic. I did it fairly
recently. It would be prudent to have the written procedure, I think.
1) There are a couple of bolts holding the steering column up which are
meant to be hard to remove. Bentley wants you to drill them out (and
replace them with the proper $8 each bolts from the dealer) but often a
visegrip will remove them, and a regular M8 bolt will do for
replacement. This is supposed to make it harder to take out the ignition
lock, I think -- but I also think that most people use slam-hammers and
would never bother with doing it the right way.
2) You need a #3 Phillips driver. A long one. The heater box is attached
to the bulkhead with four M6 screws, two of which are buried deep. There
are also similar screws at the door columns and the heater control, and #2
Phillips sheetmetal screws along the top at the windshield.
3) If everything has stayed dry up there shouldn't be too bad to remove the
screws. Just a considerable pain unhooking and removing all the stuff
that's attached, and remembering to put it back later. But...
...4) if all the screws are rusted tight then I imagine you'll be spending
some quality time drilling them out after you bugger the Phillips head or
snap it off completely. If in doubt, get the grill off the front and be
generous with the Liquid Wrench. If you do need to drill, the top-left
heater-box screw has sheetmetal in front of it (inside the grill) that I
had to drill through. I can't for the life of me remember why, unless it
was to get a tap in there to clean up the threads, or maybe to get a wrench
on an external nut that I supplied. The latter, I think. Oh, right. I
used an M6 bolt long enough to reach through the second layer of metal and
put a nut and washer on the outside. This whole episode was extremely
painful and frustrating, including having to drill the heads off at least
two of the screws up by the windshield and at least one of the
heaterbox assembly screws, as well as drilling out three of the four
heaterbox mounting screws. *Use extreme pressure of the screwdriver into
the screw to try to avoid ruining the head, and don't even think of doing
it with a #2 driver. You do NOT want to mess up those screws.* I replaced
them all with M6 bolts, buttered generously with anti-seize. You can't use
heat on this stuff b/c it's all connected to plastic except for the screws
at the windshield, which are right next to the windshield gasket. I
replaced those with hex-head sheetmetal screws (and after the dash was off
I could reach from underneath the ones I'd drilled the heads off, enough to
get a visegrips on them and screw them down through the holes). You'll
need an M6 tap to chase the threads for the mounting screws, easy to do
once the heaterbox is out.
5) I think that on the '87s you have to cut the heaterbox apart with a
knife at several cunning little sonic welds, then reassemble it with a
bunch (eleven, I think?) of metal spring clips, which is how they put them
together before they thought of the welding trick. Dealer item, I'm sure,
unless Bus Depot or someone similar has them (they have the blowers).
6) There are a couple of internal (plastic) flap doors inside which are
supposed to slam shut to keep blower air from going out the front. They
have little plastic stub pins on each end, and hang from little plastic
ears buried in the depths of the box. In the one I was working on ('85,
180k) these had worn through their supports and fallen down into the
box. I had to build up the pivot pins on the flaps with epoxy, then add
something for them to pivot on. I ended up heating brads and sinking them
into the box perpendicular to the pivot pins. Sheer joy.
7) The little screws which appear to be holding the blower in the
heaterbox are also holding the box shut.
8) You can leave the heater core attached to its hoses, though it's
physically a bit awkward.
9) Bus Depot has heater boxes complete with blowers for ??$250??.
10) None of the (three) blowers I've dealt with has had anything wrong
with the motor other than dry bearings, remedied by thorough soaking of the
bearings and felt pads with 20w oil. All of them after oiling drew 12 amps
on high speed, *as did a brand new one*. This is running on a 15 amp
circuit along with the wipers and I forget what else. Ridiculous. I made
a new 20 amp circuit for the high speed and used the high position on the
switch to drive the relay. Saves the switch, saves the fuse, saves the
melted fuse cover from the fuse not quite blowing.
11) While you have the dash off there's some stuff you should check, but
my brain hurts and someone else is going to have to tell you about that.
david
David Beierl - dbeierl@ibm.net
