Club 80-90 Forums

I had to take the dogs to the vets this morning so I took the van, it was quite cold so I put the heater on and after a couple of minutes smoke started coming out of the dash. This has never happened before, it stopped when I turn the heate off. Anybody got any ideas as to what would cause this?

Andy

That will be your heater fan motor on it's way out, there is some good info in the wiki about fixing it

https://club8090.co.uk/wiki/Co ... eplacement

Good luck, I've got to do mine soon.

Mike

Is that it ? ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,have you not tried it again since?
Has anything stopped working? eg, blower on all speeds?

Are you sure it was smoke and not steam ?

Regards


Fritz,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Right, and it was all going so well. Fritz, it's not steam, it's definately smoke cause it smells of smoke.
Mike, I'll have a look on wiki.

Cheers

andy

Just remember that whilst relatively straightforward, removing the dash can take a couple of hours (more like a day if you plod like me) and its not something anyone would want to do twice so try to weave in additional jobs not easy with dash in such as replacing washer jets and pipes, cleaning up earth points and so forth. It can save a good deal of time if you're already armed with any parts you planned to replace.

Looks like this job is an absolute joy, I am gonna have to do the blower in our girtle, she hasnt had a working blower motor since we bought her, now its getting colder in the mornings it would be nice to be able to blow some air at the windscreen.

if only there was more time.........

Bad news without the blower. I went through two winters without one and it got a bit much. To make matters worse if any keen child decided to turn it on it would take out wipers too. Thankfully that job is behind me now. No more steamed up and frozen windscreens. Well worth commiting a day to fixing it. Mine just needed a blast of WD40 and it didn't need casing taking apart - just dash removal and pulling it clear of bulkhead to gain access.

You may have broken one of those little plastic pipes and let the smoke out.

You need to repair the leak and refill with this (English equivalent RHD issue).

Unfortunately the Lucas smoke doesn't mix with VW smoke. There was a case a few years ago of someone who tried this and sadly, after six months in a heavy shower of rain his van shrank to the size of a 50 pence piece. Fortunately he wasn't in it at the time.

Mine was JUST the blower switch....it started to smoke like yours, I though I was in for a dash strip but opted to look at the switch first. It was apparent from looking at the wires connected to the back of the switch (all hard and brittle with evidence of heat damage) that something had caused this to happen.
I stripped the switch and found that several of the contacts were tarnished from this you can summise that the high resistance that this would cause had created the heat that had melted the wires.
Remedy: clean all switch and spade contacts and cut off burn terninals, replace terminals, rebuild.
I went from having just full speed fan to everything working 100% and no smoke.

Martin

Pulling the dash out isn't that bad of a job.
Justy make sure you have a couple of stress bolts for the steering column.
Rob.

I mentioned these stress bolts a while ago and someone on here replaced theirs with normal bolts. If I remember rightly, VW fitted these special bolts to columns so the wheel would fall away in the event of an accident, an extension I think of the beetle's collapsible cage idea. For that reason I simply refitted mine, doing them up with mole grips as they have a tapered head. I could easily have fitted new ordinary bolts but I'm fairly sure those bolts are designed to shear under massive stress which is why I just put them back.

Any other opinions on this? Anyone with experience of Beetles will know what I'm on about here but others won't.

Yup...Sheer bolts but not for the reason you state...
A new sheer bolt comes with a bolt head and tapered shank, the head is designed to sheer off whilst tightening and leave the domed bit for SECURITY!
Basically, they are a deterent to a thief wanting to get to the ignition barrel and switch.
I actually had the pleasure of fitting loads of these back in the mid 80's whilst working at a main VAG dealership.
Martin

So you reckon fitting ordinary bolts would be fine then - apart from the reduced security? I seem to have gotten away with refitting mine.

Yes...NP.....most people do, or as you have done, struggle and refit the originals.

Martin