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ironhorse1959 Thu Nov 28, 2019 6:07 am

I am searching for a heater blower motor that could be mounted under the rear seat, attached to one of the heater tubes. I remember having such a device back over 40 years ago, for my 1963 Beetle. I had purchased it through J.C. Whitney ( I think? ), and installed it myself. It was wired up front to a switch I mounted under the dash. Does anyone know of a source of one of these?

Scott65Beetle Thu Nov 28, 2019 9:43 am

find a squirrel cage fan not a inline bilge fan. The bilge fan will melt from the heat.

finster Thu Nov 28, 2019 10:37 am

the old ones do show up now and then, there was one still in its box on ebay.uk recently

VOLKSWAGNUT Thu Nov 28, 2019 10:57 am

Search Bilge Blowers...


https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/search.php?searc..._chars=200


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Eric&Barb Thu Nov 28, 2019 8:05 pm

Just did a search for a "Heater Blower" in the classifieds, and found one that is 12 volt. It is missing the adapter plate with the pipe though. You do not mention if you need one in the 6 volt or 12 volt flavor choice. Can use a 6 to 12 or 12 volt to 6 volt converter if need be,,,,

runamoc Fri Nov 29, 2019 6:44 am

Quote: Bilge Blowers...

If using a plastic bilge blower, mount it to a Y connector. 'Suck' interior air and blow it into the Y to assist the hot air already coming from the engine. DO NOT put a plastic bilge blower 'in-line' with the hot air coming from the engine.

If you don't mind 'ugly'. I thought of drilling a 2" hole in the back 'firewall' and having interior air blow through a hose from inside the car through the 2" hole and another hose connected from there to the heater box near the engine pulley. :wink:

VOLKSWAGNUT Fri Nov 29, 2019 7:48 am

^
JC Whitney special :lol:

They used to sell either single or dual heater recirculation blower kits ...

.

glutamodo Fri Nov 29, 2019 3:03 pm

The JCW kit I remember from the late 80 and early 90s, was the one mounted to the heater box itself, with a hose running over to the body. I don't remember a recirc kit from them, but from other places.



I had one of those kits actually, although I didn't get it from JCW, rather from a shop in Denver. Since my heater box was a 50mm outlet stale air, I had to fashion a PVC spacer so it could clamp on there.

And that is when I learned the drawback to this sort of thing... you lose the stock noise reducing pipe between engine and body... so it sounds like an vacuum cleaner going off from your defroster, if the fan is on, and if not, you hear the clacky-clack of the valvetrain. I hated it. (those bilge pump blowers are also rather noisy) For a time I re-rigged it so I had the kit's flexible hose hook into the stock hose to quiet it out, somehow I got it all to fit under there. But eventually I lost it when it fell off on rough back roads.

Then I took out a chunk of the metal pipe under the back seat and made my own padded pipe to replace it, which dampened the noise out... That was the best, nice and quiet and good airflow when I needed it (mostly in stop/go in-town traffic) I actually used a VW heater booster fan from a 1972 Bus, these originally had dual outlets but I cut one of them off and sealed it off, the other I slotted and it fit nicely on the existing pipe on the body. I then had to rig a inlet hose to go over to the heat exchanger.



On my 61-body Baja bug I did similar, except there I actually scored an early type 3 noise suppressing duct to put under the back seat and some kind of fan that fit nicely on the body:






You'll note that in both cases I opted to add support to that stock pipe due to all the weight I was bolting onto it, because I had cut out the pipe under the back seat.

ballpaul09 Fri Dec 06, 2024 5:25 pm

Could someone help ?? I would like to install one of these kits ,,, either under the rear seat or up front ,, does not matter ,,, or both !!!

have spent a lot of time looking for these kits with no luck

do they even exist ??? or are they a doe -doe bird item ???

Busstom Fri Dec 06, 2024 5:48 pm

ballpaul09 wrote: I would like to install one of these kits ,,, either under the rear seat or up front ,, does not matter ,,, or both !!!
There may not be any actual "kits" out there anymore.

You can make your own quite easily, you just have to do a little searching and some homework, for example, with hose sizes, clamps, etc.

Here is an example of what you're looking for, you can do a search for "bilge blower" and find several options, inline is an option too, but maybe not as strong (though more compact).

I'm surprised how prices have gone up on these bilge blowers.

Eric&Barb Fri Dec 06, 2024 6:57 pm

Best to search for squirrel cage blower and one that has metal parts. Have seen enough threads about plastic bilge blowers melting down due to the hot air from the heat exchangers.

Busstom Fri Dec 06, 2024 7:09 pm

Eric&Barb wrote: Best to search for squirrel cage blower and one that has metal parts. Have seen enough threads about plastic bilge blowers melting down due to the hot air from the heat exchangers.
That's only a concern if you put it inline between the heater boxes and the cabin supply, as a booster of hot air...that's not the principle that the original kits were based on. The original kits (remember Barney's?) took ambient cabin air, pushed it to/thru the heater boxes, then onward through the OE ducts...the centrifugal fan never saw heated air directly from the exchangers.

Am I recalling that correctly? Andy had a different type, apparently.

Eric&Barb Fri Dec 06, 2024 7:13 pm

Did a search for "Fan" in the classifieds and got this:

https://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/detail.php?id=2718224

and this:

https://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/detail.php?id=2518919

and this:

https://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/detail.php?id=2688541

Eric&Barb Fri Dec 06, 2024 7:16 pm

Busstom wrote: Eric&Barb wrote: Best to search for squirrel cage blower and one that has metal parts. Have seen enough threads about plastic bilge blowers melting down due to the hot air from the heat exchangers.
That's only a concern if you put it inline between the heater boxes and the cabin supply, as a booster of hot air...that's not the principle that the original kits were based on. The original kits (remember Barney's?) took ambient cabin air, pushed it to/thru the heater boxes, then onward through the OE ducts...the centrifugal fan never saw heated air directly from the exchangers.

The original VW dealership accessory fans did suck air from the heater boxes and resided under the rear seat.

Barney's kit would require having the fan/s on full time then to keep the air flow thru the heater boxes to keep the fresh air heater boxes cool. Plus would not work for the stale air engines at all.

Busstom Fri Dec 06, 2024 7:20 pm

Quote: The original VW dealership accessory fans did suck air from the heater boxes and resided under the rear seat.

Barney's kit would require having the fan/s on full time then to keep the air flow thru the heater boxes to keep them cool.
I never saw the dealership version, I'm too young :D

Eric&Barb Fri Dec 06, 2024 7:28 pm

Busstom wrote: Quote: The original VW dealership accessory fans did suck air from the heater boxes and resided under the rear seat.

Barney's kit would require having the fan/s on full time then to keep the air flow thru the heater boxes to keep them cool.
I never saw the dealership version, I'm too young :D

Got a lot of super cool accessory literature, some that includes those blowers. Started parts hunting in wrecking yards back in the late 1970s, back when VWs were just about worthless. Amazing what you could find.....

Updated that last post.

Eric&Barb Fri Dec 06, 2024 7:52 pm

Here is another aftermarket version:

https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=618550&highlight=heater+fan

Still would probably need all metal fan due to once the engine was shut off the heat would rise up to the fan.

onwardtothestars Fri Dec 06, 2024 9:58 pm

I thought about this a lot over the years. A few fans I had experience with and saved a few for the purpose was from an Audi 5000 Turbo. They were originally used to blow cooling air on the fuel injectors.

I never did anything more than experiment but using one blowing through a heater box instead of the shroud seemed to put out as much heat as higher rpm highway driving.
The idea I had was to mount the fans to the underside of the parcel shelf so that they draw air from inside the cab, then blow through the heater boxes in the standard way. Thought I would use a simple on/off switch at first and add a rheostat later.

The whole reason of this was to keep from having dirty/stinky air blowing into the cab.

richparker Sat Dec 07, 2024 6:36 am

I must be a lucky one, my heat will roast you if you leave it fully open. Same in my bus. Probably cheaper and easier to sure up the stock heating system then to add a fan.

onwardtothestars Sat Dec 07, 2024 7:25 am

richparker wrote: I must be a lucky one, my heat will roast you if you leave it fully open. Same in my bus. Probably cheaper and easier to sure up the stock heating system then to add a fan.

Heat always roasted me too, when on the open road. Stop and go city driving not so much. Never keeping the fan speed up enough to move enough heat into the cab.

Then again, not a problem for me now in the wilds of Wyoming.



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