At 09:09 PM 1/29/2002, Gerald Masar wrote:
>On my '90 Westy, the lowest lever directs additional ram air from the air
>vents in the
>rear, to the front vents, whether you are using floor or dash vents. To
>turn off all
>ram air (or as much as possible) into the van, such as in a dust storm or
>when using
>the A/C in really hot weather, push both lower levers all way to the right and
>manually close the dash vents. You will hear more wind noise, but it works.

I think either I'm misunderstanding you or else you're a bit confused --
the bottom lever controls airflow from the unheated side of the heater box
into the plenum built into the vehicle which feeds the ducts passing
through the doors into the door pillars and thence to the cabin fresh-air
vents.  The Westy does not have these vents on the left because they're
pre-empted by the shelf, and the plenum is closed off by a plastic panel in
front of the door on that side.

I agree that shoving it to the right cuts off flow to these vents (which
may give the appearance of more total air, but it's really not -- just more
left over for the front).  Also it's not sufficient to shove the two lower
levers right and close the dash vents; you must also shove the top lever to
the left to cut off defrost air.  At that point the only air coming in will
be from leaks.

There is no provision to cut off air from coming into the heater box, only
from leaving it.  And there aren't any air inlets in the rear of the
vehicle.  The newer ones have *outlets* built into the rear side windows
somehow, while the earlier ones exhaust through the bottoms of the front
doors via a grille in the bottom rear corner of each door (slide to the
front opens the vent).

david

--
David Beierl - Providence, RI
  http://pws.prserv.net/synergy/Vanagon/
'84 Westy "Dutiful Passage"
'85 GL "Poor Relation"