A Happy Conincidence

Having just survived Hurricane Sandy and having kept the water out of the inside of the bus, I've been busy with plumbing pondering. To wit, hose routing for coolant, as well as taps to route coolant to a heater matrix for warming and defrosting in the cab.

Many owners doing the water cooled conversion seem content with placing a Vanagon (T3) heater matrix under the rear seat, and call it good. I guess if your intent is to just get warm air into the cab, that will do. The T2b has such a wrenched reputation for heating that almost anything is an improvement. But I'd like to find a way to actually use the factory ducting which would provide cab heat, defrosting, etc, as well as being a convenient place to tap into for the inclusion of an air conditioning evaporator.

If this seems like bending over backwards to accommodate the existing facilities of the vehicle...you're right, it is. Part of it is that I'm lazy. The other part is that I actually care about being able to reverse the process if I choose to. More fundamentally, I loathe re-inventing the wheel. VW, for what ever deficiencies in their design, went to the trouble of including vastly improve ventilation in the T2b (relative to the split-screen bus, and certainly better than the Beetle. So I'm going to attempt to use those facilities to duct to the cab.

But wait, it gets better. As I've been reviewing the chassis I have to work with, I've come across some features that may actually make this conversion GOBS easier, at least for the primary plumbing.

The BA6 heating system, shown to the left of the control flaps colored in peach. The stock installation
just passes from the y-pipe (in the middle)of the diagram straight up to the front of the
vehicle via a long, and poorly insulated pipe.

The y-pipe shown in the center of the diagram is metal and allows the accordion tubes from the heat exchangers at the rear to combine together before being sent on forward, either to the BA6 heater in the few vehicles so equipped, or all the weary way up a poorly insulated pipe to emerge as a whisper of warmth at the dash.

I had thought that it might be possible that both inlet and outlet tubes might have been able to squeeze through this fitting. Obviously, I'm talking about silicone coolant hoses being able to squash and bend their way through a space that was only meant for air. Well, having finally found documentation of how squashed the Y-fitting really gets at the point of its greatest travel over the rear torsion bars, I'm forgetting this idea entirely. It is not possible.

However, I've also discovered that while there were special provisions made to the platform of the bus for BA6 air re-circulation purposes, there were no special provisions made between 1972-1979 for the holes in the rear cross frame: all of those holes are the same. So any solution I come up with should be applicable to any T2b bus. Which makes me smile.

What does not make me smile is that the y-pipe is going to have to come out so that I can make use of the fat hole in the rear cross member as exhaust for the radiator. This violates one of my focus points: No cutting on the body. Well, this isn't the body, and there is a fabricator in the UK that makes a fiberglas Y-pipe that goes together in two pieces and so can be fitted back into the vehicle if the old one is too far gone. This part is made available in this way because the y-pipe is common candidate for rusting out. So, lose the y-pipe.

The unfortunate y-pipe, which is put in place before the platform is
tack welded to the frame during assembly. Thus, the only way out
is with a sawz-all. at the top of the picture is the torsion bar for
the rear suspension, the bolts are to hold to nose of the
transmission in, and the tube running vertically is the clutch cable
tube. The pipe across the bottom is the exhaust for the BA6 heater.

Finally, I am gobsmacked to report that I have finally found a production vehicle that:

• Has a radiator that is installed flat in the vehicle and air is provided to it through a scoop.
• Has inlet / outlet connectors on the radiator tanks which are flat, inline with the body of the radiator.

You would think that I would be dancing in the aisles. Unfortunately, parts for the vehicle are not sold in the United States. (Starting to see a trend here?) The vehicles are the 2000+ Lotus Elise and Exige, built in the UK, and have a very very small but rabid following here in the States. These transwarp-drive rollerskates are essentially a seat belt bolted to an engine. 400HP in a car the size of a dufflebag.

Its radiator is, if possible, too perfect. And the only way to lay hands on one is to import it from china, import it from the UK, or have a fabricator build one. QED. That thumping sound is my head pounding the keyboard. Purchase price ranges from $416 USD to $600 USD. And that's without a scoop. Another less desirable candidate was the 66-72 Chevrolet Corvette Radiator, because it had a loop back in line with the output tank. Price: an eye watering $640 USD.

The $400 custom radiator is starting to look mighty good right now. I'm going to contact Daniel Record who had Wizard build him a custom radiator for his 1979 conversion.