kallen123 Junior Member posted August 14, 2002 08:54 PM
Can someone shed some light on this? I have a pop-top weekender so I have no A/C vents running up the middle. However, along the passenger side there is a vent that runs above the sliding door. It doesn't appear that these are routed to the A/C unit. And I took a peek inside and there are actually wires/cables and some foam inside?!
Is this vent for show or can I get the A/C to blow through it. It sure would be great because the A/C doesn't reach the passenger/driver area too well.
Thanks for any insights!
kallen123 Junior Member posted August 18, 2002 07:57 AM
Mystery Vent on a '90 Westy
19 reviews and no reply...can someone at least let me know if the vent in question has any function in their Westy? Thanks.
MWS Member posted August 20, 2002 03:23 PM
I may stand corrected, but these 2 vents above the rear sliding door are linked to your heating system. If you open your passenger door, you will see an a hollow channel running through the middle of it. This provides an air channel linking the rear vent to the front distribution boxes. Your bottom heater slider controls the airflow to these rear vents.
I don't know whether you can link it up to the AC. European Westys rarely have it - it's cold enough here already! Should be possible with the correct ducting.
TJ Hannink Member posted August 20, 2002 05:41 PM
The vents above the sliding door are connected to the fresh air intake at the front of the van via the heater control box. They are fresh (outside) air only outlets and use the openings in the door and the pillar behind the door to route the air to the vents. The flow to those outlets is controlled by the bottom lever of the heater control, all the way left is open, all the way right is closed.
On a non-Westfalia Vanagon, there are functional fresh-air vents on both sides of the van above the sliding door and middle window. The ducting system is also in place on the drivers side of a camper, but the vents haven't been cut in the cover where the light mounts and the flow of air into the door should be blocked by a sandbag inside the duct directly under the fuseblock.
I toyed with the idea of routing the outermost passenger side A/C duct into the rearmost fresh-air vent. In fact, I mocked up a duct out of plastic that connected the two openings. I turned on the A/C, opened the passenger door and felt the amount of airflow coming out of the vent in the door jamb and wasn't impressed, so I gave up on that idea.
This is what I have done so far to my camper to help the AC to work properly in hot weather (in no particular order):
1. I removed the upper rear cabinet and the evaporator cover panels, then pressure washed the evaporator from the inside of the van, clearing out all of the dust. I did mine while it was in place without disconnecting any of the freon lines, using a lot of plastic sheeting to protect the interior. I installed filter material between the evaporator and the rear intake grill on re-assembly to keep it clean.
2. I also make sure all the fins on the input of the evaporator are straight.
3. Make sure both evaporator fans are working.
4. Re-sealed the plastic evaporator housing panel mating surfaces with new weatherstripping and stainless duct tape.
5. I added some foam inside the vent housing to channel all the air to the front vents.
http://home.earthlink.net/~tjhannink/photos/Additional_Air_Channels2.jpg
6. Cleaned the radiator and condensor from the spare tire well-out.
7. Filled the open area of the poptop to keep the cool air from getting lost in the opening. I use a windshield sun screen for an RV. It also blocks the sunlight from the skylight.
http://home.earthlink.net/~tjhannink/photos/RVTwistShadeRoofOpening.jpg
8. I keep my my back curtain closed in an effort to keep the area behind the back seat as cool as possible.
9. Get the darkest tint possible on all the windows.
10. Make sure the rear heater is turned off.
11. Make sure the front heater is turned off.
12. Block off all the air flow through the front heater/plenum. I have some foam rubber blocks cut to fit in the openings of the heater vent cover in front of the shifter.
13. Insulate the floorboards, especially the area in front of the shifter.
http://home.earthlink.net/~tjhannink/photos/LastBetweenSeats.jpg
14. Park in the shade wherever possible.
15. Get an indoor/outdoor thermometer and mount it where you can see it easily, and monitor how the system performs. Mine will cool off at an average rate of 3F degrees per minute. That seems great until you get in the van after work at 5pm and the inside temp is 135F and the outside temp is 109F because its been parked in an unshaded asphault parking lot all day. My van is comfortable at 77F-80F so it takes a while to get to that point. I find that opening the roof vent about 1" and rolling down the front windows 1/2 turn will keep the inside temp around 120F on the hottest days here, so I try to remember to do that when I park for a long period of time.
Tim Hannink
Winter Park, Florida
Goldibox - 1987 Vanagon Camper, Wolfsburg Edition
[urlhttp://home.earthlink.net/~tjhannink/[/url]
[urlhttp://photos.yahoo.com/tjhannink[/url] Vanagon Album
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