On the subject of those side vents, I noticed the other day that both
of them on my Westy are non-functional due to what appears to be
factory-made foam rubber plugs on either side of each vent. That seems
pretty weird considering that those vents worked fine on my 84 Westy. I
know there were ventilation changes made to later models, but why would
they have decided to render the vents useless and still go to the
trouble/expense to install them?

By the way, after several hot days here, my AC system is working quite
well with the Maxifrig 12 refrigerant. Much colder than the 134a
retrofit that I did to the 84 Westy. And about a heck of a lot cheaper,
too! Of course I provided the labor this time. I figure the cost was
about $100 for the retrofit kit, drier/receiver, and enough Maxifrig to
charge the system (about 4.5 cans). I am embarrassed to admit to have
spent well over $1000 last time around for the same job. Only
difference was that I had to replace the old compressor on the 84, so I
took a chance and bought one on ebay which lasted for about 10 minutes
before it seized up and cooked the AC belt! Another compressor,
recharge the system and it was fixed, but in hindsight, I would have
ripped the SOB out of the van and tossed out the head-bonking, rear
view-blocking, crappy excuse for an AC system! That's one thing VW
really messed up when they designed the Vanagon. So who would like to
take on the re-design of the AC? How about a front evaporator? Wow,
what a concept! Sorry for crabbing, just "venting"! No pun intended...

Keith O.
90 Westy Syncro

On Jun 28, 2006, at 9:00 PM, Automatic digest processor wrote:

> Date:    Wed, 28 Jun 2006 20:41:09 -0700
> From:    Clint Kolda <clint_kolda@YAHOO.COM>
> Subject: Re: Subject: getting cooler air to the front in a Westy
>
> Has anyone ever tried plumbing the rear A/C vent into the side vents
> above the sliding door?  I would think that this would have been a
> decent alternative to the original design.  It seems that the fan
> would be strong enough to get at least some air to the front.  Perhaps
> the system would require an additional fan for losses.