This flap is disconnected I believe it’s for starting in colder climates to keep the heat around the engine and as it heats up the spring expands and let’s cool air around the engine at operations temperature.
Which way should it be
Or this way
Thanks again!
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1981 Westfalia 2.0 CU engine.
1971 Early Bay Microbus.
It looks like the spring is working correctly, holding the little arm pointing up. That is the 'engine hot' position, giving maximum cooling air flow over the cylinders. Pointing down is the 'engine cold' position, reducing the cooling air flow. A thermostat should operate a wire attached to the little arm, holding it down till the engine warms up. These however are unavailable, and have been for many years.
Should the thermostat or cable fail, the spring opens the flaps, giving the engine maximum cooling, thus defaults to the 'safe' position.
The downside of no thermostat is slow engine/oil warm up, which is inefficient fuel wise, and could over the long term cause extra wear. But let's face it, these vans aren't fuel efficient to start with, and these days don't do huge mileage, so probably not worth working about.
I have two solutions on my vans. Firstly, I use a small mole grip on the flap connecting bar to prevent it opening fully during the winter. I set it to about half closed when air temperature is below 10°c, or there abouts. And leave it off in Summer.
Second fix is a very long choke style cable running from just behind the hand brake to the little lever on the flap bar. This allows me to start with flaps closed and open them in much the same way the thermostat should whilst on the move. Sadly the longest cable I could find wasn't a twist to lock type, so a little head scratching is needed to lock it in position.
I hope this helps, good luck.
1982 Holdsworth poptop. 2L CU Aircooled.
1982 Danbury tintop Caravelle. 2L CU Aircooled.
