The Last Vanagon Water Tight Snorkel DIY / How to: Pic Heavy

[Emmitt]

So after searching here and I believe coming up with maybe 5-6 topics on tackling the snorkel and being unsatisfied I thought to myself let me stop being a lurker on The Samba and do my first DIY.

I tried to take as many pictures as possible for you and make this as dummy proof as I can. If you still can't do this by when were done here please take yourself to the DMV and ask to have your license removed.

***Disclaimer***
I forgot to mention through this very bad ass tutorial you will see my personal Van. Please don't comment on its state. It is an off road machine and gets banged up quite a bit. I like to use my money for more off-road-things/ gas/ and camping gear. I refuse to make my Syncro Vanagon sexy for other peoples eyes.

Here goes:


First off we need address the tools needed, simple things.
1.) Phillips
2.) Flat head
3.) Saw of some sort, I used a wood hand saw.
4.) 1/4 inch Matco deep well metric sockets
5.) Razor Blade
6.) Paint marker / marker
7.) Measuring Tape
8.) Beer, Hoegaarden or Yuengling only.


Supplies.
1.) Pipe cleaner, Pipe Glue, 120 grit pipe sanding paper.
2.) Double Bubble epoxy , or similar quick set epoxy.
3.) 2 inch Double male end joint, 2 inch pipe - 5 inch in length.
4.) 2 1/2 inch flex tubing, 3-4 foot length more on that later.
5.) 2-4 hose clamps "depending"
6.) 2 1/2 inch rubber hose / tube / Intercooler pipe / Silicon hose, "Depending" only


Let's do work.

So first were gonna start ripping apart everything!


Remove vent via the two phillips screws in the center of the wind veins to expose you plastic stock non watertight pre-Honda cold air intake.

Now slide the vent out towards you and then down releasing the hold tabs on the top.

Next you are going to pop your trunk.

Remove your bed cover and thermal blanket and throw it on top of your van or on opened hatch.

Now remove your deck lid. Set it somewhere out of the way. I normally lean it on the back seat and resting on top of it's tabs.

or you can just throw it over the seat whatever works for you.

No were going to remove the Passenger tail light and the passenger running light. Four Phillips screws and your out.

Next is the passenger running light, two Phillips and it's out.

Pull the passenger running light out slightly and remove the rubber water proofing socket. This exposes the two wires to make it work. Remove them.

Set your light somewhere you won't step on it.
Next, go over to the passenger rear tail light and pull it out slightly to expose the plug. I fold the rubber water proofing boot over to expose the plug to pull it off

Set that light somewhere.

Now were going to remove the plastic separator from the light housing to the engine bay. It is held in by a "clamp to the right of my hand" and one phillips screw that connects to the water separator. After those two are out, there is four metal prongs that hold the plastic shroud into place from moving.

Remove the rubber flex piece that is connected to the air box and water separator. The rubber flex section on my van was all shitty and held on by electoral tape. This section now goes back to the parts list on "Depending". If your Van is like mine your gonna want to replace this with a same size piece in length and add the extra 2 hose clamps I mentioned. Here is a photo of the tubing from NAPA Auto with the part numbers clearly visible

With all that stuff out of the way take passenger running light and pull it out of the side and into the well. Take that set and the wires from the taillight housing and move them to the engine bay like so.

This will free up room and make thing more easy when you are fighting the flex tubing into the engine bay. Also this will eliminate the risk of breaking or cutting the wires.

Now you are going to put all that aside and be pulling out the old stock hose out of the vent area of your Vanagon. Look inside the vent housing and see that it is connected by two rubber mounting taps. "I am missing the bottom one" Grab the whole assembly and pull it out.

After getting it all out t should look similar to this. I do not think that the duct tape is OEM. I really want to know what who ever did this was trying to accomplish.

Now comes the fun part, THE INSTALL.

So this is gonna suck and just an FYI I did this alone so don't think you can't shove tube and pull out the light socket with your arm all the way up, because you can

Also the joy of having a DIY, I fucked up and tried to go the easy way to not wrestle with my arm up the side of the van. I took everything apart, the whole interior, sound deadening, and gas fill assembly. There is no other way to get at this besides the three holes. Top vent, tail light, and engine bay.
Do not rip anything else out

So getting ahold of flex tubing up here in Alaska sucked ass. I went to all the usual places, NAPA, O'reilly auto parts, Auto Zone, Home Depot, Lowes, and Ace. No one had flex tubing in 2 1/2 inch. I wanted stuff like this:

I could not find anything like that. So I went to a place called Alaska Rubber. Which is a rubber specialty store. They had this stuff:

As you can see below it is clear rubber with a slightly harder plastic running around it instead of metal. I completely smashed a section to see if the plastic inside would break. It held up tuff stuff.

So now you're going to take your original van snorkel and seal the top tabs. I used gorilla glue and let it sit for 24/ hours. Shit still didn't work so I said fuck gorilla glue for life

I suggest using this totally awesome stuff called "Double Bubble". I stole a whole box from Afghanistan while on deployment out of a conex and shipped it home.

Here it is 15 minutes later fully cured and working like it should, better than stock

Now take the end of the snorkel at the bottom that is round. We need to beef this up. So take your razor blade and cut a one inch slit from the bottom. Now take your 2 inch double female pipe fitting and slip it over the end. The slit is two make the plastic end fit into the pipe fitting. You want your slit to be just above the pipe fitting. Now if everything looks awesome were gonna glue. Take your sand paper and go around the outside of the plastic snorkel and the inside of the pipe fitting. "Go around the pipe NOT up and down, same for cleaner and glue. So now were gonna prep this with some pipe cleaner. Shake it out, it dries in like seconds, now apply glue in same manor. After glued push the pieces together and give a slight twist to seal them with even coat.

Get your 5 inch length of 2 inch pipe and repeat this process to the other end of the double female pipe. Once this is done I like to apply another layer of glue around the pipe shelf to double make sure its water tight, not like I'm gonna be in water that deep.

Now set all that aside and let it dry.

Were moving now, get you flex tubing and were gonna run that bad boy down the van and test fit and mark for cutting.

Your gonna get it half way down and get stuck. So this is why we have flex tubing and not straight pipe.

If you look to the upper right of the photo below where the piping is coming down you'll need to reach up there about 6 inches and pull the tubing to the left towards the front of the van. Now with your right hand push the tubing down and pull down with your left. Pull down excess and test fit it and secure it to your stock water separator

It should now look like this

Go back to the out side and take a paint marker or any thing else and mark the tubing hanging out of the van at the lowest point of the opening of the vent. Make sure it is visible you don't want to run this again.

Now disconnect the tubing and pull it all out.

Now take the top of the snorkel that is now dry and place it into the vans vents and secure the rubber parts to the factory tabs.

Now mark on the snorkel where it hangs to the lowest part of the opening in the vent. Pull out the snorkel. Now measure from the mark on the snorkel to the bottom of the snorkel. "This is the measurement to cut off the tubing"

It is better to have a little excess, than two little.

Your gonna cut your flex tubing and then secure it to your stock modified snorkel piece with a hose clamp.

Now where gonna run that bad boy down again and twist back around. Put hose clamp on the bottom and tighten down.

Now if your like me you see part of the body is touching the hose and had the potential to saw itself through your newly designed bad ass snorkel.

So two options here, do what I did and roll the frame like so:

Or secure it to the metal gas filler tube with some zippy ties like so:

Now the reason I chose to Roll the frame was because I figured Zip tying would hinder the passenger running light like below, but in the end the choice is yours.

Thats it and your done, you can now go through the water like a tank. Reverse steps to get the beast back together.



Thanks for looking and enjoy!!!!

[Tristar Eric]

Only one comment.

The factory added a water drain hole in the pass through elbow. they also make the elbow dip before it enters the dust trap. It is very important to retain this feature. I have seen a conversion where the shop put the elbow in backwards, result was that the airbox filled with water and eventually hydrolocked the engine.

Just saying...

_________________
Vanagon/Transporter flares here: www.terrawagen.com
[email protected]

[?Waldo?]

If hydrolocked was all that happened then they were lucky. Bent connecting rods is more common. If you don't add a mechanism for preventing water ingress your engine will eventually be damaged or destroyed. The way it is set up now it could happen even while driving in a heavy downpour.

[16CVs]

Speaking of water and snorkels, turn you idle stabilizer over. The way it is mounted it will fill full of water and stay that way.
Just take the screws out and turn it over .

Stacy
_________________
1987 Syncro Westfalia Triple knob (bastard)
1989 Syncro Tristar Triple knob "Swedish"
2013 Jetta Hybrid a true "Zwitter"
Samba member # 14980
Call anytime number 650 722 4914 .
Keep Your van running and upkept tastefully for the love of the hobby.
Don't let your van end up in an "abortions" thread.

[90PDXWesty]

It's not likely that I'll be installing a snorkel any time soon, but I sure as hell can't wait for Emmitt's next DIY write-up. Hee-lariously written and to the point with a refreshing lack of PC correctness. As far as I'm concerned, you can rip off all the Double/Bubble you can carry, sir ...

Thanks for the write-up!

[Gizmoman]

In case no one mentioned it, thanks for the write-up and tons of pics!

I don't have a syncro and am diesel powered but always find VW DIY interesting.
I'll bet you could add a drain hose or even a P-trap (or both) without too much effort.
_________________
82 Vanagon Westy - AAZ 1.9 TD, HE200 Holset, WAIC, 27.75 dia tires, Electric power steering, 5-speed AAP w/.078 5th
Oversize spare carrier - stock location (no longer for sale).

[Emmitt]

And JFK was shot by one guy with a magic bullet. Look magic rain is not going down the angled louvered vent then back up reverse gravity then rearward and getting sucked opposite of wind travel back into intake. Then it needs to make it passed the dust trap, then completely soak the Air filter sopping to make it passed that.

The way it is set up now it will not suck up water, there is no way rain is getting in there. If ya want I can go out side and take a video to post on here of me straight spraying my hose into the air vents while someone is revving it up. Then well shut it down and check the Air box.

On top of all this, all of this, this write up was to more elaborate on getting the job done and helping someone. This was due to the lack there of already available here.

If someone was so much inclined and that scared, they can easily convert there set up to with an extra 30 minutes to this:

or this:

or this:

[crazyvwvanman]

You are mistaken. Water can sometimes get in the intake pipe from that upper vent. People who have done engine conversions and tied a custom intake hose to that upper vent pipe have found this out. Then they modify things to add a water trap with drain hole, like VW did. Seen it with my own eyes. Hope it never happens to you.

Mark

[?Waldo?]

If you think that my post was fantasy, bear in mind that I personally bent ALL FOUR connecting rods with an intake that had angled louvers covering the opening that diverted the water rather than shoveling it in like the stock louvers AND it also had a p-trap with drain hole. Personally I could not care less if you or anyone else takes it seriously as the results if you don't are simply justice. I'm really just putting it out there for folks who might read your DIY and think it's a good way to go as is. If you think that's 'hating' you have a seriously skewed perspective. There are certainly ways to avoid water ingress, but your initial post does not make any accommodations for it or even any mention of it.

[termuehlen]

I was inspired by this post to improve my own snorkel. I was indeed getting some water into the Subaru air filter assembly on my van and needed to find a solution.

My Subaru air intake box has a 2-1/2" intake opening. I just had a short piece of hose extending into the vent cavity on the left side of the van which was allowing water into the air intake box.

I noticed that my shop vac hose was just about the same size as the intake opening, so I decided to build a "shop vac snorkel".

I bought this 2-1/2" hose with the "Rigid VT2502 Crevice tool" attachment.

I cut some additional holes in the attachment tool with a Dremel.

Drilled some holes in the lowest part of the hose to drain any water.

Compressed the hose/attachment connection to make it a little more oval shaped and taped it with outdoor duct tape. Then pushed it into place.

It fits very tightly, so I didn't feel the need to attach it to the tabs in the van. I don't think there is any chance of it sliding down in the cavity and it is held in the front by the plastic louver panel.
Then connected the other end to my air intake box.

[Emmitt]

Hey Termuehlen, Nice post. I was thinking of doing something similar to the holes you drilled out in the hose, this way it'll let the water drain out the line. But I really do take my van off roading too much and it would suck water through those holes. Im currently working on something easy to make at home to elevate water getting down the pipe and still having a solid tube.

I have not driven my van in a couple months due to the front of my starter bearing shearing off on the flywheel and letting all pieces fall between the engine and tranny. So like any good owner I ordered the (RG3) Bostig Conversion and am awaiting to do the install. I think I fell another Play by play write up coming up for that.