I don't see where anyone answered your question yet.
Yes, the knobs need to get pulled off the levers first.
They take a lot of force to get off the levers sometimes, scary-level of
force,  it takes so much force sometimes.

Then the plastic panel will pop off - it's 'clipped' sort of on plastic
points.  Usually comes off pretty easily with a screw driver under the edge.
Then you have access to the fan switch. 
Scott
www.turbovans.com 

-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of
Stephen Grisanti
Sent: Saturday, July 28, 2007 7:54 AM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: getting the fan blower switch out

So I bought this replacement dash switch and now I
need to yank the old one.  The blower switch is in the
same panel as other the heater/ventilation controls so
I guess the panel must come out for access.  The
Bentley shows a nice illustration of the entire
system, but not how to remove the panel.  Do the knobs
on the heater controls come off first?  Does the
entire panel pop out or does it come off to allow
access to mounting screws behind?

Related question: does the Haynes (or another) manual
provide more/better/different info on this?   Thanks!

Stephen

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