Heater repair

[reluctantartist]

How difficult is it to get the gas heater working?
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1982 Westy, 1974 412 Variant... Yes, Aircooled's are great! Oh and I do have modern computer controlled vehicles too, but I just don't care about them.

[vonkr]

what's wrong with it? the question is a little bit to general...

It could be easy if you know what's wrong and you only have to replace a part, it could be difficult if you don't know what's wrong...

[reluctantartist]

I am not sure yet, the car I may get has a non working heater. I am not sure if it is from just not being used or what ...so I guess my question really is are they easy to work on or does it take a lot of work just to access it. Can the parts still be located or are there adequate substitutions?

Thanks
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1982 Westy, 1974 412 Variant... Yes, Aircooled's are great! Oh and I do have modern computer controlled vehicles too, but I just don't care about them.

[raygreenwood]

Most of what few parts go bad can be gotten. Finding a fuel pump iss tricky but there iss a work around using a facet pump.

Unless the system has gotten certain parts wet, or unless it has been abused by a PO trying to make it work without knowledge....usually a broken wire, bad fuel pump or bad glow plug is the extent of issues.

It is worthwhile on any of these systems to remove teh unit for inspection, cleaning, checking for rust throughs and its easier to remove, reseal the turbo blower.

Its not hard to do. After removing the exhaust pipe and disconnecting the wires...mark them and have the battery disconnected....there are four 10mm nuts and it drops right out.

Typically it needs to have the covers removed from the blower and have both sets of points cleaned, filed and gapped to .016". One runs the fuel pump, one runs the coil.

Clean all connectors. I have gotten rid of the rubber fuel line and replaced it with a section of metal brake line and a steel union at the top nipple. I connect to the pump with a short length of rubber line.

Usuually having a bad dash switch or a bad relay is rare.
Do these basics and then we can help you troubleshoot by what it is doing and is not doing. Ray

[Lahti411]

There are couple of things that make the maintenance bit more tedious though...
If nobody has touched the heater you are lucky as then you'll have the chance to mark the wiring and reattach it exactly as it was intended. Eberspächer made several changes to the wiring during the production and atleast i haven't managed to find all the schematics that would show all of them. And although the wiring loom has been made into the cars main wiring loom it's not drawn into the cars schematics. So if you are going to remove the wiring take lots of pictures and mark the wires.
Other irritating thing is that removing the heater is not quite as straight forward as mentioned above... It's not really hard job but you actually have to remove the left side spring and shock absorber to get the heater out if the transmission is still in the car.
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My cars: 1972 VW 411 Variant; 1973 VW 412 4d sedan; 1976 Saab 99 Combi Coupé

[vonkr]

I could also ask an other question: do you live in a cold country and are you gonna use the heater frequently?

Here in holland, most of the type4's are standing in garages and are only driven in good weather conditions. For the only time you need some heat, you can also use the "normal" heater (allthought it works bad).

like most are replying: try to find out what's wrong, most parts are available (new or used).

[reluctantartist]

[Lahti411]

..
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My cars: 1972 VW 411 Variant; 1973 VW 412 4d sedan; 1976 Saab 99 Combi Coupé

[Lahti411]

I'd try to repair the heater first. But if it seems impossible to figure out whats wrong with it and you cannot get it to work after you have done the basic maintenance, you can convert to bay window bus heat exchangers. They'll give you more heated air and it's a bolt-on job.
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My cars: 1972 VW 411 Variant; 1973 VW 412 4d sedan; 1976 Saab 99 Combi Coupé

[vonkr]

the problem with the type4 regular heaters is that the hot air goes through the gasheater and looses heat there. Because in a beetle, if everything works fine, than you can get it as hot as in a sauna

what you can do is remove the gasheater and connect the regular heater direct to the warming tubes.

But try to fix it first, I' ve got a spare one in the garage. Don't know if it works, but probably some parts can work. Don't need money for it, only shipping costs.

[reluctantartist]

Thanks vonkr, I will keep that in mind.Since I will be hauling the twins around in it the heater is important. It will not be until August when I probably get a chance to tear it apart and look at it if it is not an easy fix.
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1982 Westy, 1974 412 Variant... Yes, Aircooled's are great! Oh and I do have modern computer controlled vehicles too, but I just don't care about them.

[raygreenwood]

[Bill K.]

[raygreenwood]

I would like to add to what Bill noted:
If after troubleshooting you still do not have proper operation of some of the major components like blower, fuel pump or ignition....do not despair. Agreat amount of quirky problems can be caused by fiddling by previous owners. Even when the system appears pristine....there are things not in teh manual to check. Example is the connection tabs on the high limit temp switch. If a PO has removed the heater and sloppily reinstalled the switch, it can easily bend the connector tabs causing a grounding situtaion that repeatedly blows the 30 amp inline fuse (olive green wires).

Also its not uncommon to find one or more power wires either clipped off or re-arranged in the main plug of the double relay. There are several ways to make this system run and work around heh failsafes....and one or two of them are dangerous....so check your wiring to the diagram carefully.

Also glow plug wires revresed is a common issue. The single pole switch on teh left hand heater lever tha tstarts the auxiliary blower being filthy or disconnected is a common one as well.

Start with teh book and make sure everything is exact and we can go from there. Ray