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creative native Fri Mar 28, 2014 1:47 pm

While restoring my instrument cluster, I installed new l.e.d.'s that I bought from GoWesty, which is one of the best upgrades I have ever made. I also bought an l.e.d. for the climate control. One of the mounting pins broke on my climate control face plate while removing it. I bought a replacement from SleepyJoe in California (a good person to do business with) and while that was in the mail, I saw that GoWesty sells brown n.o.s. climate control face plates, so I bought one of those also. Now that I have three brown climate control face plates, I noticed that all three are different. Being that they are brown, this would limit the production years from 1980-early 1987. Can anybody explain the differences between these three? My original is on top in the photo, which is from my 1986 Westfalia GL.


Backside of plate showing mounting pins......


crazyvwvanman Fri Mar 28, 2014 2:32 pm

The top one is the common 83+ style after they changed the heater box and improved the vent control. The middle one is 82 and older, such as an 82 diesel with poor upper vent control in the heater box. The bottom is from a model without rear ceiling vents, perhaps trucks. In black that bottom one was found in 90/91 base model Vanagons that had no rear ceiling vents.

Mark

creative native Fri Mar 28, 2014 3:35 pm

Thanks Mark! I do appreciate people who can make such informative answers. So it seems that of my three, the only one that is appropriate for my 1986 Westfalia is my original with the broken mounting pin. I have Gorilla-glued it back on and perhaps it will work. I now know this topic is beyond the gauge of which face plate it preferred, but which is correct.

Ahwahnee Fri Mar 28, 2014 4:48 pm

I made a little chart that lives in the ashtray explaining where each lever should be when.

I have never found my faceplate (or any of those pictured) to be intuitively obvious and on a vehicle I drive a long ways but at infrequent intervals, a crib sheet helps.

dhaavers Sat Mar 29, 2014 5:24 am

I've thought for a while about putting a small schematic on each lever itself
(ie: "windshield" / "C<>H" / "foot" / "REAR")...

...although now I know what I need where and when, but it might shorten
the learning curve for the uninitiated...???

Ahwahnee Sat Mar 29, 2014 6:34 am

My 'chart':

1 L=VENT R=DEFROST
2 L=COOL R=HEAT [AC-LEFT]
3 OUTSIDE AIR L=OPEN R=CLOSED [AC-RIGHT]
4 REAR VENT L=OPEN R=CLOSED [ALWAYS-RIGHT]


The last one is because I never have rear seat passengers.

Yondermtn Sat Mar 29, 2014 7:12 am

I'm stealing that cheat sheet. 8)
Thanks

spitsnrovers Sat Mar 29, 2014 11:26 am

Thanks for that cheat sheet also Ahwahnee. I've added it to a diagram that I sourced from other posts to this forum, and maybe it helps explain how it all works.

However, I don't think I have it quite right yet, for lever #3 ? :?





[EDITED] now shows fresh air lever as recommended by Crazyvanman[ /EDIT]
Any further refinements?

kalispell365 Sat Mar 29, 2014 12:02 pm

Correct me if I am wrong,but the top lever ONLY controls the defrost,not anything to do with the left and right dash vents until around 1988.Everything earlier had the l/r dash vents ONLY supplying fresh outside temperature air.These vents are simply controlled by the levers on the actual vent and are independent of the rest of the system.

So,for 83-87:

TOP: defrost on/off
SECOND: heater valve
THIRD: feet (false floor on the diesel as well) on/off
BOTTOM: rear roof vents on/off.

Clear as mud :shock:

MUCH better write up than mine:

http://www.gowesty.com/library_article.php?id=311

crazyvwvanman Sat Mar 29, 2014 12:40 pm

The air flow to dash end vents isn't directly by any of the 4 levers, but that didn't change when the end vents got heat. Also the GoWesty dash vent description contains an error regarding the year for the heat change to the dash end vents. The change occurred early in 87 model year production and the majority of 87 vans have the same heated air to the end vents as 88+. VW says only the first 13,413 of 1987 vans have the early setup, so more than 90% of 87 vans have the later setup.

Also it is important to note that bottom lever #4 lets only fresh air go to the rear ceiling vents, not heated air.

Mark


kalispell365 wrote: Correct me if I am wrong,but the top lever ONLY controls the defrost,not anything to do with the left and right dash vents until around 1988.......

MUCH better write up than mine:

http://www.gowesty.com/library_article.php?id=311

Merian Sat Mar 29, 2014 1:18 pm

What is sad is that VW designed such a non-intuitive system.

luVWagn Sat Mar 29, 2014 1:49 pm

crazyvwvanman wrote:
Also it is important to note that bottom lever #4 lets only fresh air go to the rear ceiling vents, not heated air.
And even then, that's only if the sliding vent controls at bottom of doors allow for air flow back there, right? (Air passes through the doors and up the B pillar?)

geo_tonz Sat Mar 29, 2014 2:27 pm

luVWagn wrote: crazyvwvanman wrote:
Also it is important to note that bottom lever #4 lets only fresh air go to the rear ceiling vents, not heated air.
And even then, that's only if the sliding vent controls at bottom of doors allow for air flow back there, right? (Air passes through the doors and up the B pillar?)

Not quite...they're not connected. The ducting in the door routes air from the front vent system to the upper vents in the back. The vent control on the doors is an out-flow that uses the door cavity and holes in the front of the door to draw air out. Open those up and blast the defrost and you get inflow from dash and outflow through doors. Or open fresh air vents and door vents in summer for maximum fresh air flow-through. Without something like that you are just pumping air in with no where for it to go, so lots of air movement but not much exchange with the outside air.

From Go Westy:
Quote: These vents allowed air to exit the interior. Sliding the lever toward the front of the vehicle opens the vent, rearward closes it. On the leading edge of the doors, in the door jam, there are three oval holes that open into this hollow space of the door itself. As a Vanagon plows through the air, air flows around the vehicle creating low-pressure zones near the front door jam areas. VW engineers realized this and used this low pressure to suck air out of the interior of the vehicle. Air flows from the inside of the vehicle through the little vent at the rear end of the front doors, through the hollow door itself, into the door jam area, and out of the body gap between the front door and front quarter panel.

Later vans eliminated the door vent (just a blank there) and put the vents in the back windows that encorage air flow from front to back of van, not just circulating through the front seats. I'm contemplating puting the door vents from one '85 into my 89 to see if I get better airflow with both door and window vents. I also have a set of later rear windows with vents to put in one '85 for the same effect.

EDIT: in reading the Go Westy article again I see they mention that the ducting behind the blank grill on the door was sealed off in the later vans so I might be SOL for my '89 but putting the rear vented window in my '85 should make quite a difference.
http://www.gowesty.com/library_article.php?id=311

geo_tonz Sat Mar 29, 2014 2:53 pm

Also another great tip I read and have seen in practice is that if you want warmer air and quicker defrost, turn the fan down. With the fan on 3 it blows through the heater core too fast and doesn't heat up, and consequently won't thaw your wind shield as fast. 2 works better!

If you just want airflow blast away, but also realize at highway speed the fan is doing very little to amplify the ram-air effect of pushing the front of a Vanagon through the air. You'll probably just make more noise than anything else with the fan on high at faster speeds, regardless of what position the levers are in. You can turn it right off and still get great airflow.

kalispell365 Sat Mar 29, 2014 4:56 pm

crazyvwvanman wrote:

Also it is important to note that bottom lever #4 lets only fresh air go to the rear ceiling vents, not heated air.

Mark

Thank you for this tidbit Mark.

On another side note,can the early and late heater boxes/ducting interchange?

kamzcab86 Tue Apr 01, 2014 3:22 pm

geo_tonz wrote: Later vans eliminated the door vent (just a blank there) and put the vents in the back windows that encorage air flow from front to back of van...
EDIT: in reading the Go Westy article again I see they mention that the ducting behind the blank grill on the door was sealed off in the later vans so I might be SOL for my '89 but putting the rear vented window in my '85 should make quite a difference.
http://www.gowesty.com/library_article.php?id=311

FWIW, VW kept the holes in the doors despite adding the rear window outflow vents. Take the grilles off the doors and you'll find black tape over the holes... I had to replace the falling-off tape on my van's driver door.

geo_tonz Tue Apr 01, 2014 3:44 pm

Thanks. Now that you mention it I do remember seeing the tape when I had my door card off.

tilstad Sat Apr 05, 2014 9:03 am

geo_tonz wrote:

If you just want airflow blast away, but also realize at highway speed the fan is doing very little to amplify the ram-air effect of pushing the front of a Vanagon through the air. You'll probably just make more noise than anything else with the fan on high at faster speeds, regardless of what position the levers are in. You can turn it right off and still get great airflow.

+1

On one of my vanagons the heater fan stopped working. Even in -20 celcius in the winter, the front window defrosted pretty much as quickly as before, not enough difference to bother replacing the fan, so I didn't. Drove 2 whole winters with it, no problem.

kamzcab86 Thu Apr 10, 2014 11:00 am

Ahwahnee wrote: I made a little chart that lives in the ashtray explaining where each lever should be when.

I went a tad further and made 4 business card-size cheat-sheets to keep in my van :lol: :


(The printed version of the lower right card has typed-out length and height. Stove panel card is in color for printing out on a magnetic sheet.)

Made a brown version for those interested:


Summers420us Thu Apr 10, 2014 1:30 pm

kamzcab86 wrote: Ahwahnee wrote: I made a little chart that lives in the ashtray explaining where each lever should be when.

I went a tad further and made 4 business card-size cheat-sheets to keep in my van :lol: :


(The printed version of the lower right card has typed-out length and height. Stove panel card is in color for printing out on a magnetic sheet.)



I believe you have #2 incorrect...

L=Cold R = Hot



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