Weren't the VW air cooled? Sounds miserable. Sounds like it woulda been better with some heat in there.
I did see someone who had a Subaru from the south. Didn't even have heat -- and he was driving it in NYS.
We drove ours from Michigan to Utah in December... after 36 FREEZING hours on the road I can attest that they never warm up. We had ice inside the windows.. and learned to drive inside a sleeping bag sitting up.. working clutch was tricky.. but once on open road and in 5th gear it was no big deal.
JS Witless had them, for a while.
Let the record show that "Stormin Mormon" wrote back on Sun, 09 Oct 2005
22:28:24 GMT in misc.survivalism :VW's were air cooled, and they blew air over heat exchangers (with the exhaust manifold) to provide warmth tot he passengers. This could take a while, sometimes, especially in winter. Usually the distance from where we lived to where we worked.
tschus pyotr
If you think warming up a VW bug or Ghia was diffucult, try it in a bus.
I had a 71 VW bus that I drove to work and back at one of the ski resorts outside SLC. Coming back down the canyon at night require me to dress just like I was out skiing, wool hat, down jacket and gloves. The only difference was that while skiing, I didn't have to carry the ice scraper.
I solved the heating problem by buying an adapter from a place called Kennedy Engineering which allowed me to install a Ford 2.8L V6. The radiator mounted up front. I put in a heater core/fan in between the front seats and ran a piece of hose from the air outlet. I could direct the hot air to the windshield or side windows for a defroster or where ever one needed hot air, worked very well. It also solved the underpowered problem with the bus, you should have seen people's look when passed on a steep canyon road by a VW bus, beep, beep...
DJ
Driving a VW up and down Mountain roads should have produced more ten enough heat during the winter....
I drove a 61 VW back and forth from my appartment to school in the BIG CITY ...rush hour traffic.. bumper to bumper.. 2 mph. between lights.. The .result was the engine never was warm enough to produce any heat.... Looking back the only thing I really rememebr about that car was it had no gas guage...just a lever between the seats to switch to the reserve tank when you ran out of gas... which honestly happened many times... heck gas was about 25-30 cents a gallon then...too expensive for a college kid to keep the tank full... .
Bob G.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ There were two types of heaters. Both very similar, but the VW/german one was much better then the US made after market POS. The first VW I bought had an after markt unit hta thad a nasti habbit of belching
fire when it started. A friend who was into VWs big time gave me a german unit that he salvaged from a wrecked VW. Much quiter with no fire breathing oddites and it didn't choke you with unburned gas fumes. From 1975 through
1983 I went through 3 bugs and moved the heater to each in turn.Does using a car as a boat count as "jury rigging?" There was the time my wife and I used a VW beatle to cross ~1500'of flooded highway. She got out and up on the hood with a big flashlight and I kept the engine revs up to keep the exhaust clear. The snow tires
made fairly effective paddle wheels. It wsn't the smartist thing we had
ever done, but the other option of trying to walk out was even worse. A
heavy rain up river caused the river to fill and by the time I realised
what was going on,the best option was to get out there was no place to park the car that wouldn't have flooded, so if the car did stall nothing would have been lost. There was no current but it was still scary.
I learned to pay closer attention to more distant weather events. Had I been paying the proper attention I would have known about the heavy rains 100 miles up stream and would not have gone to visit a friend by that route.
Terry
Am I remembering correctly that they sold aftermarket gasoline fueled cabin heaters for VW beetles? Or were they for Corvairs?
IIRC they uswd a vaporizing system similar to a gasoline fueled camp stove, and an electrically driven blower.
Somewhere out of the mist in my mind the name Eberspächer comes to mind. Anybody remember 'em?
Jeff
I had a 64 and a 70 Karmen Ghia. No, it never produced enough heat even on the highway. The newer one was a little better but I used to carry an ice scraper for the inside of the windshield. OTOH, they never overheated, even on the hottest of days.
I had 3.
The downside to the heating system was that any oil leak would end up in the passenger compartment.
It was still a great car despite the hatchet job Nader gave it.
Corvair came out in 1960 and had a gas heater. I'm not sure about the 61, but my 62 was heated with the engine heat.
Of all the cars I've owned in 43 years, the Corviar was one of my favorites. Good handling, great in snow, had a good bucket seat. Had pretty good heat in winter, and even better heat in summer. I had to cover the vents with foil in summer.
Chuckle. Been there, done that. When scraping inside frost was too much bother, just drive with head out the window, or wear artic gear and keep windows open. Goggles helped. The part I hated was driving through a puddle, and having water splash up through the floor and hit me in the face.
Damn, I miss those old family Beetles. Unsafe even when new, but a blast to drive. Totally stone age by modern standards, and parts and service are down to British convertible standards unless you live in Mexico or southward, but I'd love to have one for a fair-weather toy.
aem sends...
Where do you think I'm posting from, Chris?
TK
At home,while cleaning,middle sister leaned on bathroom sink that the stamped steel hanger had rusted thru,and broke sink off wall,cracked open iron pipes(old house),spraying water all over while she screamed and held up sink. 8-). After shutting water off at meter,I used a couple of gas shutoff valves I found in Dad's misc plumbing box to cap off the sink pipes,and got the main water back on so Mom could cook dinner.(IIRC,I was
17) The stamped hanger was replaced with a cast-iron antique hanger by Dad.In Re: Your Best Emergency "jury-rig" job on Sat, 08 Oct 2005
19:21:22 GMT, by Tony Hwang, we read:
Know what a Tiger is worth today?
In Re: Your Best Emergency "jury-rig" job on Mon, 10 Oct 2005
11:03:13 -0400, by Jeff Wisnia, we read:
VWs. Saw a few of those in Alaska. VWs did well on the snow/ice.
Me too. For the last seven years.
Guess I'm not memorable or prolific enough.
TK
You're supposed to say in your writing.
Now, I happen to be posting from M.S.
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