Heater Box Cable Questions

On the original bugs, they were solid wire cables. If you heater boxes are old or original, I would disconnect the wire at the cable box and manually move the lever that controls a flap inside the heater box. See if that is working easy, if not the flap inside may be partially open. I would try and work it until it moves easily. Be careful if you use WD 40 or some spray lubes as they are flammable. Sometimes the solid cable will kink making it hard to move easily in the tube. Check the adjustment with the cable at the lever and make sure it is completely closed when you close the heat off in the car. With most of my bugs, the only time the heat seemed to work, was in the summer.

Gary

The mechanism in my car that is supposed to open and close the flaps does not have enough ravel to fully open or close it, so seasonally while I am under the car changing oil or something I will wire the flap in the fully open or closed position.  Kind of a pain, but since it's only twice a year I have not yet been motivated to design a more convenient solution.

Lane:

Figure out a way to move the actuator wire connection on the flapper lever farther toward the pivot point.  (It might take drilling another hole in the actuator arm, farther down and re-mounting the wire connection - a new connection from a throttle might do it).

That'll give you more flap travel for the same amount of cabin mechanism movement.

The Beck mechanism is a screw that is frankly too short to provide enough travel.  The whole thing would have to be replaced with something else.  I've thought about it, but never been bothered enough to actually come up with something.

So I released the cables from where they attach to the flap levers under the car and took the knob off from the inside.  I removed the knurled nut that holds the screw in place in the tube and pulled the wires out of the tube. The wires were not connected to the screw that is attached to the ivory knob.

I'm going out on a limb and guessing that something is amiss here??

Shouldn't the wires be connected to the screw part that is attached to the ivory knob?

Here are some photos of what I have.

In the first photo is all the parts.  The second photo is a closer shot of the screw that I think to which the wires are supposed to be connected.  It would also have the ivory knob attached to it.

Any help??

Looks like the same mechanism, but for the life of me I can't remember how the wire is connected.   I sometimes just unscrew the whole thing from the tunnel and pull up on it. It seems to stay in place ok.  I'll try to remember to take a look at it this evening.

The first thing I thought was "Where's the Piston?" (and remember, I owned my '55 Oval window bug in 1966-1968 and never messed with the heat control - "What heat??)

Isn't there supposed to be a piston-looking thing that attaches to the threaded part such that as the knob is turned the piston moves up and down within the tube?  And the finished ends of the cables fit into the sides of the piston and are held in place by the tube.

I'll poke around the web and see if I can find what's supposed to be there.  Bug City didn't show them on their site, nor did a couple of sites in the UK, so I'll keep poking. That part, IIRC, never wears out so they may be hard to find, unless you try Vintage or something.

GOT IT!

http://www.coolairvw.co.uk/Ite...ntrol_Mechanism.html

Not saying you need to buy from a UK site - they usually have more (and often, better) parts than you'll find in the US, but this shows you what you're missing.  

Your piston MAY be sitting down in the tube if the bottom roll pin wasn't inserted before everything was pushed home.  sliding a Mechanic's Magnet down in there should pull it out, if it's in there.

Good Luck, but you're on your way toward properly working heaters!

THAT's it!  Now I remember.  Doh!

I do remember seeing a threaded part still in the tube so it may be in there.  I'll get on it tonight.

Thanks for the help so far.  I'll let you know how it goes and I may have more questions.

Pin #7 goes through the loop in the cables. If the magnet doesn't work, you might try to screw the spindle back into the sleeve so you can pull the sleeve out of the tube. I'm surprised you were able to pull the cables out without pulling the sleeve out.

I got parts 1-5 out.  When I discovered the cable wasn't attached to number 5 I crawled back under the car and pushed the wires back into the tubes and the bend in the cable came out of the sleeve.  I grabbed the cable and pulled it out.  There was resistence on the cables so I suspect some gunk has built up in there.  I plan to spray some degreaser or some other type of cleaner in there and blowing it out with a compreesor to clear the tubes.  When it dries I'll grease a new cable and push it back into the tubes.

I should add that the knob is very tough to turn so I think there is a fair amount of junk built up in the tube.

I'm thinking of using bicycle brake cables, it is small diameter and flexible. Any thoughts on that?

There are a couple of potentials in those cable tubes.  One is a build-up of hardened gunk in the tubes, and the other is subtle bends in the tubes making it hard to pull the cables through.

For the first one, try getting a big aerosol can of carburetor or brake cleaner, stick the can's tube into the cable tube and blast away for 15-20 seconds per tube, then blow some compressed air (20 pounds or so)through the tubes for 10-15 seconds and then repeat.  Remember to put a rag or something over the opposite end of the cable tube as you blow chemicals through them, just to be neat.

Once they blow clear, then liberally grease up the cables and run them back through.

On the bicycle cables, if you can find one long enough it might work, but finding one that long might be difficult.  You might be able to find a suitably sized cable stock in a hobby store (RC actuator cables) or at Michael's (picture hanging cable) or something like that, but I would try cleaning the tubes and re-lubing first.  (Plus, stranded cables will stretch over time....)

I thought about cable stretch but figured I could crawl under the car and tighten it up after a few years.  I only need the heater with my wife is in the car with me.

I may be wrong but I think those stiff WIRES are there for a reason. The twist knob is meant to pull the wires to close the heater doors and meant to push the wires to open the heater doors If you replace the wires with cable you will have to use stiffer springs to open the doors. Also I think the factory would not have gone to the extra expense of using twisted cable when plain wire would do. But I could be wrong.

That's a good point, I hadn't thought about that. I'll take that into consideration.

Thanks everyone.  I have gotten some great help so far and I hope to get back into the garage to finish this up some time this week.  I'll post the results of my trials and errors when I finish. I'll start out with cleaning everything and using the stock parts and if that doesn't work I'll try something else using the ideas I've gotten from here.

Also, I just found this video on how to clean out those tubes:

http://www.classicvwbugs.com/2...-heater-tubes-cable/

The threaded sleeve can pull the wire because it's looped over that pin, but when you turn the knob the other way, the bottom of the loop is open so the pin can't push on it and there's nothing inside the sleeve to push the top of the cable back. It does rely just on the springs to close the flaps. I agree they wouldn't have gone to the expense of a twisted cable.

Later years with the heater levers can both pull and push because the Z-hook cable end stays in one place in the hole in the lever.

So the heater cables won in the battle to try and make them work.

After removing the cables, which was tough to begin with since they felt like they were binding, I sprayed carb cleaner into the tubes to assist in clearing them out. After letting it soak in a little I used the compressor to blow out the junk.  One tube had a very small amount of air coming out of it and the other tube had none.  (Sounds like the Three Little Pigs nursery rhyme)  Then I noticed that there were two puddles of carb cleaner on the garage floor at the front of the tunnel.

I couldn't get even a small rod more than a few inches into the cable tubes from the back of the car. And if I inserted one into the tube from the cabin it went back quite a ways but then it got stuck about a foot from the back of the tube.

No amount of anything seemed to work. Air from the front, air from the back, rods, wires, etc.  Nothing got through the tubes.

With carb cleaner on the ground in front and the sound of the wire banging about inside the tunnel leads me to believe the tubes have all but fallen apart due to rust or something.

I put a spring on the lever to hold it open and I'll just keep the cabin heater doors closed.  Very little to no air seeps in while driving with the doors closed.  When it warms up I can disconnect the spring and secure it in the opposite direction so the flaps are closed.

Defeated for now but I'm going to have my more mechanically inclined brother come up with a solution using servos or something.

Tried that method several times and keep snapping the coat hanger off in the tube.  It was a PITA to get the piece out each time.  Coat hangers aren't what they used to be.  I bought some flexible steel rod stock and tried with that and while it never broke it never made any headway.

Thank you for the suggestion though.