US VW Cabriolet 85

[Madone_si]

Gear stick cover installed


and gave the VW a clean!


Also noticed this heater lever came off way to easily, is this part actually broken (white plastic part) or is this is how its meant to be?

[Agreeable Slick]

Looking awesome Si. Hope you are keeping well.

[Madone_si]

Looking awesome Si. Hope you are keeping well.

Thanks a alot slick. Yeah all is well mate, just working on the home and when parts turn up, can get more work done on cab.

[Madone_si]

VW heater fix

So with top heater lever not working properly, dismantled the dashboard and found the issue, which is there is plastic part that has broken (Heater control pivot broke) Reading up and being informed from others on another forum, this is a common issue.

The white part in pic should have lever on top and a black plastic holds it in place and that is what has broken off


I followed this process to learn the fix and process (big thanks to Briano)
https://www.volkswagenownersclub.com/threads/my-heater-control-pivot-broke-cabriolet.46441

So here is what I did to fix it.

Once I got the unit out (not the easiest thing to do!) I inspected everything and gave everything a good clean.



In the above picture I drilled through black plastic part that holds the pivot parts in place and placed a bolt, washer and nut on the end. This will help fix the problem.

Added the white plastic back on, added white grease to pivot and moving parts


added the broken black pivot plastic part, now with drilled out hole through it to put the bolt, washers and nut through it to hold in place


Bolt installed from top with washers


Underside showing washers and threadlock (blue)


Nut installed and tightened up enough to lock but allow the pivot setup to work for both levers


Then installed the A/C lever and added grease. I placed a washer underneath ready for install as this is known fix for common issue of a-c-slider-pops-out-of-place. nice easy fix!


Next update, unit install in dashboard and time to do flush, clean and fresh coolant install (including Radiator inspection, replace thermostat and check all coolant pipes!!

[Mr_Orange]

Nice repair job !
I hope this gets it all operational again 

[Madone_si]

the cab is always working, just trying to do things to keep it in great health and fix things as I find them. Hopefully will have heating and cooling done this weekend!

[Madone_si]

Well the last few weeks I've been having fun with my blower fan motor not working (one of the carbon bushes and holder of it was burnt and bent!!)

I've managed to fix that issue (write up of that coming soon) but discovered another issue!!!!

Then I tested out the complete system on all the settings and noticed the Vacuum servo for air recirulation flap was not opening or closing, so I followed this amazing PDF - http://www.cabby-info.com/Files/HVACTesting.pdf and everything was working just perfect until I tested the vacuum distributor and bingo we have a leak.

Part #161820293B - another expensive part, not available from VW!


So some research and looks like there is alot of good info on on various online forums - the best thread on how this unit works was found:

https://www.vwvortex.com/threads/how-that-darned-vacuum-distributor-really-operates-a-detailed-analysis.2883746/?id=2883746&highlight=vacuum+distributor
How That Darned Vacuum Distributor Really Operates

and
https://www.vwvortex.com/threads/vacuum-distributor-on-the-heater-controls-not-the-same-as-the-manual.2860977/
Vacuum distributor on the heater controls…

Next steps!

    Managed to find replacement NOS part (waiting on that to arrive.)
    try and fix my one, I noticed a few people have tried a few tricks and got it to stop leaking, but I am guessing I will have to get a replacement part.

Updated this problem to a few of the dedicated mk1 forums to see what others have done to do a fix (be nice to do the fix and have a spare)

All this issues ended up taking out the complete dashboard which actually will allow me to do some other work without breaking my back!

[Madone_si]

Got my new vacuum pipe junction in today and connected it all up.




Tested out each of the cooling/heating positions and everything is working as needed, I come to test out the MAX A/C positions as seen in this http://www.cabby-info.com/Files/HVACTesting.pdf and in photo below, this is the only option that allows your under the passenger dashboard recirculation vent flap to Close and its not closing. About 3 minutes later it really really slowly started to close - which to me is not right.(Tested the pipes to make sure the retracting the diaphragm, forcing the recirculation vent flap closed and that worked just fine so we know that is not the problem)




I then noticed that the new vacuum pipe junction is not moving all the way down into the slot.


and I very gently moved it to as far as it could go into the slot


and as soon as I did that recirculation vent flap closed within 2 seconds - its working as it should!


I repeated this process using the levers and again the top lever just doesn't move the vacuum pipe junction far enough down to get the MAX A/C position to work as required and thus the recirculation vent flap would not close. Moved the vacuum pipe junction down gently again and recirculation vent flap closed within 2 seconds.

So the big question is the new unit broken, the top lever bent, the unit it all connects to out of alignment, at this point I have no idea. Anyone got any ideas?

I took a pic of the vacuum unit apart to give everyone good idea what these look like apart

[Madone_si]

I managed to fix my heating/cooling issues, with simple fix, update on that and rebuilding of my fan motor too soon.

Well waiting on parts for my steering column, moved onto refurb of my steering wheel.

Treated the steering wheel to cleaning and treatment to wheel itself and then removed the center silver clip an painted it to match the OEM Red trim color.


Had really nice warm weather the last few days, so that helped this work.


Wheel as I got it







Up close you can see little damage on surface




Part details for future reference




Time to prep for sanding and painting




primer, had to do this a few times as primer to get it to point of smooth for red paint.




Few coats of red




Sanded down ready for final red paint




2 coats of Red and 2 coats of clear finish




dryed for 24 hours and then all ready




and installing on wheel!







and all ready for installing in the vw cab again!

[Madone_si]

Heating/cooling not working in mk1 cabriolet.

After fixing my main heater unit controller, I finally was able to test out my heating/cooling system. If became clear that my fan/blower motor was not turning on, as I could not hear the fan turning.

I used this great document to get to my fan/blower motor out of my mk1.
http://cabby-info.com/Files/ReplacingTheBlowerMotor.pdf

Spec of my fan/blower motor:
vw blower fan # 171-820-015 or 021
Carbon Bushes measure 8mm x 9mm x 22mm

Now that I have the fan/blower motor out of the car, it become clear what my problem was very quickly.

As you can see one of my carbon bushes is been pushed and melted the holder itself, thus the carbon bush is not pressing up against the motor properly and thus not working.



After some research (not much found the w.w.w) I managed to find solution to my problem.
As you can see from my other thread I brought this up in https://www.vwvortex.com/threads/blower-fan-motor-carbon-bushes-and-holder.9470480/#post-115093383 no many people have had this issue, usually they replace the whole fan/blower unit and as you can below with cost being $$$ I was not happy to spend some time to find a cheaper fix. Plus its actually harder now to find a replacement unit.



My fix:

   1. I found new carbon bushes.
   2. The carbon bushes holders from later blower fan motor from VW golf mk3/4 are the same setup and fit perfectly so using set from vw golf 4 gave me the holder I needed. Part # 1J1819021
   3. I added disconnects on cables so it's easier to service blower motor in the future, so no more disconnecting cable from inside the car.
   4. I gave the motor a really good clean too.
   
   I ordered another later model blower fan motor as additional spares for the future.
   
Here is how I fixed my fan/blower motor.

Once you have the motor out of your vehicle and on a table, you can start to take apart the fan blower motor.





As I planned to add quick connects to my cables, I cut the two cables to be able to remove the cabling to one side. FYI: To replace the cable is also expensive so be careful with that.



Next up is to remove the carbon bushes holders. Both holders are held in place with springs, carefully remove these with precision pliers and not let the spring go from your pliers or it will spring out of sight into your room!

With the spring removed you can now pull the holder outwards and pull forward to remove from motor. Repeat this for both holders

Here you can see springs


Now you have carbon bushes holder on table you can see clearly the problem I have with one of my broken holders and carbon bush bent.







So with sourcing new parts from later vw mk4 fan motor, you can see below the later holders in the unit before I took them off.



Mk4 unit looks like




And now compare the original holders with carbon bushes to the ones from mk4 golf motor. The later model holders have a nice cable holder, so I plan to use both mk4 holders once cleaned up a little.



Also going to use later mk4 spring too.. My originals seen better days!



So after some cleaning up of holders, I removed the original carbon bushes from my unit compared to mk4 and placed beside the holders so you can see


Carbon bushes

Top - from mk4
Middle - from mk1
Bottom - new carbon bushes.


Made sure my original carbon bushes fitted the mk4 holder and they do - happy days!


New carbon bushes


Using the mk1 original carbon bushes as template, I used 80grit sand paper on wheel in power drill to get the shape I need


And placed into the mk4 holder


Placed the carbon bushes holder back onto the motor, with mk4 springs. Using again my pliers to pull spring from inside to the other side to secure in place and then twisted cable end with carbon bushes copper together


Now using a new cable tube, placed over and crimped to secure cables together




Repeated on the other side


At this point I wanted to check the motor worked

Click to watch the short video!
https://live.staticflickr.com/video/51166717673/12fd235b7c/1080p.mp4?s=eyJpIjo1MTE2NjcxNzY3MywiZSI6MTYyNDA4MzE0NSwicyI6IjkxNzMwYWVmOWQ2Y2M1MmEwNGY2ZjIxNTAzYTVlMjIzNjI5MzE4Y2UiLCJ2IjoxfQ

I then added quick connects onto the end of the cables






Now time to reinstall into the mk1 again.

Ran the cabling back through into hole and connected cable up inside






Then installed the fan blower motor




With the fan blower motor working and in the car, now time to test out my complete heating/cooling system.

Tested out the complete system on all the settings and noticed the Vacuum servo for air re circulation flap was not opening or closing, so I followed this amazing PDF - http://www.cabby-info.com/Files/HVACTesting.pdf and everything was working just perfect until I tested the vacuum distributor and bingo we have a leak.

Part #161820293B - another expensive part, not available from VW!

So some research and looks like there is a lot of good info on vwvortex - the best thread on how this unit works was found here:
https://www.vwvortex.com/threads/how-that-darned-vacuum-distributor-really-operates-a-detailed-analysis.2883746/?id=2883746&highlight=vacuum+distributor

And
https://www.vwvortex.com/threads/vacuum-distributor-on-the-heater-controls-not-the-same-as-the-manual.2860977/

So as outlined in earlier update recently waiting for parts to arrive, once they arrive I will update here with full details on fixing this part and actually test out system on all settings and then get actually get onto doing A/C servicing and coolant flush and refill.