Heater/Defrost Settings & Questions (Page 1 of 2)

Well, I am glad to help you as you have helped me many times. I also have a rust free car and had similar defrost problems. I am in Canada's Pacific North West although inland where it's drier but cold.

First off the reason you are fogging up when you turn on the defrost is obviously water getting in the system or being held by paper like mine was. In my car the tube in the door pillar looked fine but inside it was partially unraveled, restricting the flow, and it was damp. Changing this hose increased pressure and dried things up.

Here's a quote from earlier on how that went.

You really should enlarge the inspection hole under the carpet at the bottom. Use a Dremel and double it's size but cut only towards the front of the car. So in effect cut another adjoining hole ahead of it. This is because just behind the hole the metal is double thickness, for structural reasons I assume. The old hose may have left remains on the nipple like mine which I scraped off with a bent coat hanger.

Cut the new hose to size and clamp the Y piece to it to use as a handle. Use a funnel to expand the lower end a little.

Holding the Y piece shove the hose down the "black hole" till you can see it in the inspection hole.

With the bent coat hanger hook the tube through the hole into place on the nipple.

Grab the Y from above and screw it back and forth and down.

Check through inspection hole and pull down to check.

My hands aren't that big so I got around the hood hinge but you may find it in the way. The hoses from the Y to the dash must go in front of the hinge so as to not get pinched. I had to go around a gas heater as well!

I sprayed a light mist of WD40 down the tube to repel moisture since thats what messed mine up in the first place.

Check the hoses in the dash as well remembering they can look OK on the outside.

I vacuumed my heat channels out and got lots of crap out. The little vents at the rear window allow air out which increases heat flow and helps clear the rear window. Mine both had old mouse nests in them.

Try not to mess with the hard plastic tubes connected to the dash vents. It takes a lot of bad language to get them in.

You should have a fresh air box in your car. It can be replaced with a 2 speed fan unit from a Super Beetle. It will bolt right in and mine works great! Some modification is needed for the drain hose and for matching sizes of the connections to the dash. The fresh air knobs on the dash will hook right up to it. Sounds like your knobs are not hooked up. Turn clockwise to close. Pull your air box and check. Those flaps have foam on them as do the foot vents. Seriously, get a fan box from a Super. I know where there is one for $100 Can.

The right side heat lever should be all the way up to get as much heat and pressure as possible. The left side lever should be all the way down to direct all the air forward. Tape up the foot vent on the driver side to get as much up to the window as possible.

In a rust free car the heat system works very well. I have to turn mine down unless is several degrees below freezing outside. I can only use my gas heater for about 10 minutes at -10C.

Howdy Mike,
Have you tried Rain-X on both sides of the windshield?
I even use it on my eye glasses when running a boat.
It must be all the warm moist air from the cooling fan that causes all the moisture problem.
When it is really cold up here I have to do some serious scraping on the inside of the windshield, it looks like there is a snowstorm in the bug til it warms up
we have a JC Whitney 12v hair-dryer for the defroster that makes a real difference.
keep'n warm'
hank

Hiya james,

You have me over the proverbial barrel.  However, I do have (or at least I think I have) a fresh air box with fan.  I can take a look at the fan motor for the resistor and the capacitor if you like.

Hiya james,

I believe I have a later model fresh air box (plus fan) out in the shop.  At one time in the distant past I had attempted the very fix you suggest but gave up on it.  Looks like I may have to give that a hard second look.

That's it.  Great suggestion james.  I'll give that a go.

I don't expect you will be seeing that resister any time soon as you have to completely disassemble the fan box and remove the press fit fan before you can get to it. Is it possible to calculate how many ohms would be needed to get half speed? And what's the theory behind the capacitor?

Maybe you could measure the humidity at the rear seat vents then turn on the defrost and measure it there and determine where the moisture is coming from. I get some humid air coming in if I go through a deep puddle in the rain with the defrost on but thats it.

The fan box is quite easy to put in an older Beetle. I only need it when idling for a long time but it works great.

Hey Mike,
Yes I use Rain-X on the inside--The down side of the Rain-X on the inside is the smell as far as I can tell- do it ahead of time and the smell will be gone

As for the river we are going through a cold spell now and the river is down -Spring will be the bad time when all the snow pack starts to melt.
The Provincial Emergency Program(PEP) is talking about removing the rock from a river that is building up close to a main bridge near to town and trucking it up to our place (2 miles)so we can fill gabions-large metal chainlink boxes- to divert the flow. I wish they would get on with it while the river is down.

I think a D-9 cat and a good operator could do remove the log jams and open up a channel in a few days, that is what we are pushing for.
I've got the parts cars somewhat clear now.

hank

Hiya james,

I'm afraid I'm going to have to weasel out on you.

I went outside and looked around for the fresh air box and fan.  Had no trouble locating the box.  But I could not find the fan anywhere.  As I mentioned earlier I removed the fan because it was squealing.  Now it's not like me to throw anything away (check with my wife on that score) but it is remotely possible that I did ditch the fan.  I'll keep an eye out for it, but james, I do regret not being able to come up with that information for you.