Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2021 09:33:55 -0600
Reply-To: Tom Hargrave <thargrav@HIWAAY.NET>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Tom Hargrave <thargrav@HIWAAY.NET>
Subject: Re: Backwards Flow Through Heat Exchanger OK?
In-Reply-To: <61a23174.1c69fb81.7fc5a.f16b@mx.google.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
It works either way because the exhaust gas is so hot that the air passing
through on the way to the cabin does not remove an appreciable amount of
heat.
Thanks, Tom Hargrave
www.kegkits.com - Electric Brewery Info
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http://goo.gl/niRzVw - My Amazon Store
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-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of
Derek Drew
Sent: Saturday, November 27, 2021 7:24 AM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Backwards Flow Through Heat Exchanger OK?
Is the heat exchanger in the heater box indifferent to which hose is hooked
up in the forward/lower position and the rearward/upper position in the
heater box?
The reason I ask is because I was looking at a (excellent) GoWesty repair
video for the heater box and it shows them starting off with the hose that
enters the vehicle in the floor on the passenger side ("Right side") going
through a clamp next to the heater box and then gong to the "TOP" (rearward)
position in the heater box, what we could call CONFIGURATION A. Some text in
the video emphasizes the same thing, saying "Rightmost=Top" and
"Leftmost=Bottom" for our CONFIGURATION A. But then at the end of the video
at 12:46 as they are finishing up they show the configuration the other way
around with the hose entering the floor on the "Right Side" (passenger-side)
going through the clamp and then to the lower (forward) hose connection on
the heater box, what we could call CONFIGURATION B.
Their video which shows the hoses connected first one way, and then the
other way, is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7wgsznvcCE
Then I looked in one of my syncro campers ('91) and the last mechanic hadn't
hooked up the hose clamp to the frame at all, which suggested to me I had
resolved why I could not close the glovebox after that service. It was while
trying to figure out the hose clamp configuration that I noticed the
discrepancy in the GoWesty video about which hose gets clamped to the huge
frame cross member on which the heater box sits.
Then the plot deepened because I noticed that my van had CONFIGURATION B
where my "Right Side" (passenger-side) hose was also connected to the lower
(forward) hose connection on the heater box, as Go Westy did at the end of
their heater box video. At this point, I paced around in the garage for a
moment and had strong WTF-type feelings for a second.
I then noticed a great UK video equivalent to the Go Westy video from
(adorable?) ItalJohn here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DozqP2ADdHw His hoses were hooked up in
CONFIGURATION A (ref 5:31).
So, I suspect that with configuration B my hoses are hooked up backwards to
the heat exchanger. A question is whether I should create a little coolant
mess in the van and fix this or whether the heat exchanger really doesn't
mind what direction the coolant is flowing through it.
I could not think up a search query to resolve this, although I did find
some wishy washy suppositions that maybe the heat exchanger doesn't care
about the direction of flow.
_______________________________________________
Derek Drew
Sharon CT
derekdrew@derekmail.com
Email is best normally but...
Mobile: 703-408-1532 (voice and texts)
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