Club 80-90 Forums

Hi people

Could you possibly answer this one, maybe it's normal but I think not.

When I'm driving the van cold air blows through the air vents even when I have it set to hot, more so when doing over 50mph, when at 70mph my eye brows ice up. I can turn the blowers off but the air still comes blowing through.

When it's at a stand still it blows hot air in and can be controlled by the blower as it should.

Is it just a case of the engine being at the back and when driving the cold air is just forced through the front grill straight into the cabbin?

You need to tell us what engine you have, especially whether air cooled or water cooled?

Also, which vents, the demister ones (that blow onto the windscreen) or the fresh air vents in the ends of the dash?

It's a water cooled 1.9, I'll have a look at the air vents and let you know.

Thanks for the feedback

We'll looking at the air vents it doesn't look clear which ones I have, looks like I have both so I've taken a picture.
<a href="http://s45.photobucket.com/user/Rashash ... 8.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f78/R ... pdxku8.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo AF3E5441-6E3C-4B62-B38C-80A0103EBF1E_zpslnpdxku8.jpg"/></a>

Attempt two

There are 3 types actually. The demister ones under the windscreen, and the ones on the top of your dash, over at the extreme left and right, should blow hot air when the levers are set appropriately. The other ones are in the part of the dash by your right knee, and your passengers left knee, these only blow cold (fresh air vents) and are not controlled by the main heater control levers.

If either of the ones you can see in the pictures blow cool whilst driving, then you have a problem of some sort. Could be the heater control is not opening the heater valve correctly (quite common). The only real way to test that is to take the spare wheel out and look at the valve (with a torch) whilst someone operates the control. You could, at this time of year, just jam it open.

Or you could have an air lock in your coolant system. This is much more serious as air locks can easily damage our engines. Suggest do a precautionary bleed procedure, if that check of the valve mentioned above shows it is working correctly. (detail of how to bleed it properly in our wiki). Do you need to top up your coolant much ?

Lovely job, thanks

I've also just ordered a new thermostat anyway and just going to check everything to do with heating and cooling, this way I can have confidence in it and understand how it all works

the ones on the far left and right also blow hot air on the later vans, early vans is just fresh air as ghost says

lloydy wrote:the ones on the far left and right also blow hot air on the later vans, early vans is just fresh air as ghost says

Ah, you learn summat every day

p.s. = Assuming the ~1985 changeover point ?

p.p.s. = So Hash brown, what year is your van ?

To be honest i don't know the date, although id hazard a guess and say a bit later than that. Maybe with all the other comfort changes in '88-89

It's a 89,

I'm going to guess it's the lever as only a slightly warm bit of air comes out when the vans still and cold when driving.

But will go through the whole system, swear a bit, scratch my head and then figure it all out.

Or just drive it in the summer....problem solved

lloydy wrote:To be honest i don't know the date, although id hazard a guess and say a bit later than that. Maybe with all the other comfort changes in '88-89

Yes, that would figure, mine is what I call a MKII, being a late 85, it has the later brakes, cooling system, doors etc etc, but does not have some of the "comfort changes" etc the ~88 onwards vans have.

"Comfort changes" = I like that expression, is it official or is it one of yours?

Made it up as i was typing

We'll started to check the heating and cooling systems and decided to start by fitting a new thermostats regardless.
So I removed the housing and this is what I found, someone had bodged it.
I guess with out the internal parts the valve is always open so the engine is taking longer to get warm? better than being stuck closed. For the sake of £10 why would you bother.

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Now I can't load pictures..doh