Does anyone have thoughts on repairing the hinges of the free-hanging flaps
that bypass ram air around the blower?  They pins on the flaps wear
triangular, and the open-bottomed clips molded into the box wear into a
funnel shape with gradually increasing gap -- especially in dusty areas.
If those flaps fall out or don't swing freely the blower becomes completely
ineffective, although ram air still works perfectly.

I don't recall ever seeing anyone but me even mention them, but to me
they're an important item.  I've kluged fixes with pins or bits of brass
heated and shoved into place from the outside of the box, but I would love
to see a systematic way of dealing with them.  They have to swing freely
because at the beginning of their swing toward closed there's a large
opening and hence little force on them.

Yrs,
d

I suppose at the worst you could glue them shut, but I suspect ram air
would be considerably reduced.

On Sat, Mar 11, 2017 at 2:57 PM, Dan N <dn92610@gmail.com> wrote:

> thanks Jeff...
>
> I took a couple days to do the works on the list, looking for material to
> mend the flexible air tube and the flaps, take pics (so I won't forget what
> go where), cleaning etc etc ..... to be honest, removing the dash is not
> hard at all... the other works take way more time...
>
> the biggest mistake I made is open up the heater blower box in situ and
> then I discover later on I can just pull forward the heater core and lift
> the box out and put it on the bench... way easier to work on it...
>
> in hindsight - if I had more time (it's my son's van) - I would replace the
> brake booster with the one from BMW
>
> note: I did remove the metal triangle behind the radio too... to give more
> room to the radio
>
> I would appreciate if anyone can add something on my list because I have
> one more van (mine) to do...
>
> dan
>