When I was living in Grand Forks, ND with my '84 GL, I did a couple things.
Used pipe insulation and wrapped it around all the heater hoses.
Took some thick cardboard and covered about 2/3's of the radiator.
With both of those, I got decent heat from both heaters, but the temp gauge usually still didn't make it to the bottom of the LED.

GregM

On top of those, I ran a battery warming blanket and an engine oil heater. Never installed the coolant heater.

-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of Roy Nicholl
Sent: Tuesday, January 02, 2018 1:44 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Re: It's cold out there

Dave:

We have the same issue - I just keep telling myself it’s much better than the J-tubes on the ’66 trying to send warm air to the front of the bus.

> On 02-Jan-2018, at 15:11, ddbjorkman@verizon.net <ddbjorkman@VERIZON.NET> wrote:
> 
> Ford battery died and the Bus (Vanagon) has been put into extra service.  Always starts right up, hope I didn't put a whammy on myself with that.  Well, it's into the single and low double digits here in New England and I have noticed the Bus has a hard time maintaining heat to the interior.  My temp gauge sits on the lower edge of the red light.  It takes the normal 5 + minutes driving to warm up enough to move the gauge far enough off bottom to turn the heat on at all.   I am considering constructing some sort of bra to go over the upper grille to decrease air flow over the radiator.  First I thought  I might post this question.  Is this normal in the frigid cold?  Have others experienced this?  Could it be a malfunctioning thermostat?  Does someone make said bra/cover?  I await your reply.
> 
> Dave B.