Hey AC vanagon drivers,

I took Nathaniel's advice and opened up my heater boxes last week (see
original message below).  As expected, the original box on the passengers
side was full of varnished oil from 25 years of oil leaks.  The drivers
side box had been replaced 3 years ago and has had a nasty chemical smell
since the day I installed it.  Turns out that the stench was coming from
the glue used to adhere the fiberglass mat to the inside of the box.  I
threw out the fiberglass mat (there was one on the top and bottom of the
box) and scraped out all of the residual glue.  A shame really, since the
mat and associated foil lining probably helped to retain some heat and the
glue was totally unnecessary.  Well the results are wonderfull.  The hot
air has just the slightest tinge of that formerly overpowering
oil/chemical stench.  I took a couple hour drive last weekend in
temperatures that dropped into the upper 20s and actually stayed warm (at
least when I was at highway speed)!  To anyone dealing with stinky heat in
an air cooled van I would reccomend Nathaniel's suggestion.  After seeing
how strongly that old oil and glue was adhered to the inside of the box I
can say with certainty that there is no way that simply power spraying the
inside of the box at a carwash would clean it up.

C-ya,
Jake

On Wed, 25 Oct 2006 22:02:35 -0700, Nathaniel Poole <npoole@TELUS.NET>
wrote:

>For all the air cooled iconoclasts lurking on this list I've just finished
>rebuilding my heaters and posted the results on Samba at
>
> http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?
t=200832&sid=e4c26bc6da53de3
>6e42afccabcb291fb
>
>If you scroll past the dishwasher divergence in the thread (which is funny
>enough) I've got some pics showing how I did it. It really wasn't
difficult.
>Nobody should put up with that smell or crummy heat.
>
>