Dash Out

[Ian Hulley]

There's a lot of fuss made about this job .... I did mine earlier this year and apart from it looking a right old dog's dinner and having to be careful where the heater control cables go there's nothing to fear. You need lots of space to have the doors wide open to get the dash out and back in (and a hoover to get rid of all the crap that's settled back there). I found a letter to the milkman dated 1994

I needed to swap the fan motor but swapped the heater matrix as well while I was in there .... I'll never be going back under there in my lifetime.

Ian

[Ant-t]

Yes thats good to hear

[CJH]

There's a lot of fuss made about this job .... I did mine earlier this year and apart from it looking a right old dog's dinner and having to be careful where the heater control cables go there's nothing to fear.

I haven't done the job myself, but having read up on it I agree, it doesn't seem scary at all. At least in my case the bit that seems to cause the problem - the shear bolts - has been done. In fact, I've changed my mind about doing everything that I might ever need to do under there - I'm going in specifically for the blower motor and the heater flaps, and maybe a bit of a tidy up. The wiper motor seems fine at the moment, so I'll leave that for now and if it needs doing in the future then I'll take the dash out again.

I moved my blower motor wiring onto its own fuse. I noticed that the wire from the fuse box is a bit stiff and crackly from the heat, and since there isn't enough slack in that wire to cut much off I'm planning to run a fresh wire while I'm in there.

So come on then, help me out with the foam for the flaps. Does it cover the whole face of each flap, or is it only needed round the edges? How big are the flaps, and how many of them are there? How thick is the original foam?

[silverbullet]

Replacing the foam on the flaps means completely removing the heater box and dismantling the flaps. The foam is thin, around 3mm and in strips around 50-60mm wide. Reckon on a good metre plus if you do the passive bypass flaps inside the box.

Its a bit overrated imho since in the winter you always want a bit of warm air bleeding though and in the summer a tiny flow of fresh air is no bad thing.
These vans aren't air tight at the best of times and who is honestly going to be driving through a dust storm?

And then there is the risk of the cable anchors snapping off etc...

Have some ABS glue handy.

[CJH]

Brilliant, thanks Ian. I'm not aiming for air tight, but passengers have complained! It could be a broken or inoperative flap, but I'm trying to be prepared.

[Smcknighty]

I gave the levers another go tonight. F all difference, I even tried the one that should do the floor vents and lent back but couldn't feel anything coming that way either. Need to try dash off I guess

[silverbullet]

Dash out isnt difficult, but having an assistant to help guide it in/out is handy. The dash pod switch plugs only fit one way, just be careful with 30 year old plastic! Its not especially heavy, just awkward.

[RogerT]

Had my dash out once, to re-fix the heater cables. Not too bad a job, and mole grips or water pump pliers get the shear bolts off (and on again) quite reasonably. I tried to take the heater box out but failed. So have never had a working heater!

This winter I'll try again, my motivation being that the van won't start and I suspect a dodgy immobiliser, even if it's not that (and more likely a starter trigger wire) it'll remove one complication. So as the immobiliser is under the dash, I'll have a more determined go at the heater box. And tidy the wiring. And add quiet making stuff too.

Be careful taking off the instrument pod cover, the brackets can break. Breaking one of the two is ok, after that you have to be VERY careful.

Getting the dash back on again is trickier, as you are juggling the heater air vent pipes on both sides of the van while holding the dash. You need a friend.

And try to get the steering wheel on straight again... or it might bug you...

[CovKid]

I have a new blower ready to go in next Spring. I'm dispensing with the original resistors that dicate fan speed and replacing with a proper 20amp motor speed controller so you can have any speed rather than the fixed three-notch approach of original controller. Works out around a quarter of the price of new resistors and everything looks OE on the dash. After Christmas I'll put blower and controller on the bench and video if anyone is interested to see how it works and is wired up. Controller even has a reverse function which might be handy for blowing out the smell of cooked bacon?

Craft foam (found a pack in a local 99p shop) is ideal to replace original foam as its made of more modern material. Its about 4mm thick but you can stack two sheets if you need it even thicker.

[New Kentish Campers]

One other thing before you remove the dash. Put some 2" masking tape in a couple of layers adjacent to the edge of the dash, where it meets up to the A posts. All too easy to scratch your paintwork when juggling the dash out on your own. Ask me how I know.....

[Ant-t]

One other thing before you remove the dash. Put some 2" masking tape in a couple of layers adjacent to the edge of the dash, where it meets up to the A posts. All too easy to scratch your paintwork when juggling the dash out on your own. Ask me how I know.....

Good tip

[CJH]

Hmm. Today's lesson: it doesn't matter how prepared you think you are....

I had the dash out in under an hour, and the heater box about half an hour later. But the box is so completely shot it's not going to be worth refitting it. Every single plastic bolt tab is broken, so it was effectively held in with just the lower metal brackets. The top housing around the motor has evidently broken in two and been bodged back together with silicon sealant and self-tappers. And although I thought it would be easy to separate because it's got the metal clips, it's been glued back together with more silicon sealant and won't budge. I just know it would break again if I try too hard to get it apart. The control cable for the lower flaps is mangled, and half the mounting strips that the lower dash panel slides onto are missing.

So time to source a decent replacement I think, and I'll be finishing this next weekend after all. Still, at least I've replaced my overheated wiring.

[irishkeet]

watching this with interest too as I have this job to look forward to when the van comes back.

CovKid how do you find the speakers now they are behind your dash?

[CovKid]

Wouldn't change them. Sound great and I've never totally figured out why as you'd think line-of-sight would be a must. It certainly goes against all my experience of stereo imagery but then a vehicle, much less a van is no way a good environment for audio in the first place. The reason it sounds fine may lie in the fact that our dashes are not piled with padding like modern vehicles and the sound to some extent bounces back at you from the windscreen via the many gaps there are. I could probably improve them with a tiny pair of piezo tweeters on top but I find I can adjust the bass/treble to get a really great, balanced sound. I think you have to try it to see what I mean. I know. logic says it shouldn't work but it does. Go figure.

[Roydini]

Fantastic feedback and advice folks. thanks very much for everyone's input. It seems there are a few of us gearing up to this job so please feel free to do as CJH has done and let us know how you got on. Sorry to hear yours got a bit complicated CJH, hope you find a new box. Good luck with the refit.

Thanks again