Those springs on the cables were there for quick-disconnect of the flaps.
You'd just depress against the spring's preload to remove the cables from
the levers.
If it's on the wrong side (where it does no good), it's probably from
someone's incorrect assembly, but is easily corrected, IIRC.

Mike B.

-----Original Message-----
From: Richard A Jones
Sent: Tuesday, December 28, 2010 1:49 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Re: Aircooled heater cables

Mark:

Here's the setup on my '81 aircooled non-California with-gas-
heater-booster Vanagon.

The bracket that is welded to the top of a frame member and has
two vertical ears is shown in Bentley 80.4 and again in
80.3, Fig. 3.  In my van the offset ear is not used; the
cable is anchored to the ear that is directly above the
frame member, which corresponds to the marks "B" and "1"
in Fig. 3.

The rubber bellows is on the heater flap lever side of the ear.
There is some kind of rubber cover on the other side; maybe
part #15 in ETKA 81-7-11-71-00 and "seal" in Bentley 80.4.

In my van, the spring is between the heater flap lever and the
cable terminator (#21) on the R side, but is on the other
side of the flap on the L side.  I assume that is a mistake
from some prior work--it can do no good on that side.

There are some pictures that show some of this at
http://jones.colorado.edu/jones/VW/aircooledheater
Picture 3 shows the unused, offset ear of the bracket.  It
is behind--towards the rear of the van.  The ear that is
used is the one toward the front of the van and directly
on top of the frame member.

Hope this helps.

Richard A Jones
Boulder