Yes, that's Ringo the Beetle's interior.
The top shot shows how far I had to dig, and the lower one is all the pieces I took off. I even had to remove the "backboard" I had installed in the rear cargo area so I could completely fold the rear seat in order to release the rear of the console, 45 inches from the area I wanted to work in! We'll talk about the red arrow in a minute.
This project started so simply. I had bought a leather shift boot on eBay to replace the very worn one in the car. It was a laborious process, because I was my typical cheap self and bought only the boot itself instead of the assembly. That meant I had to install the new boot on the plastic frame by removing, hand-straightening and reusing a bunch of staples. But it worked out well. Sorry the "before" picture is blurry - I didn't realize it until it was too late to change it.
After doing that, I took Mary Ellen for a little ride in Ringo. It was chilly, so we turned on the heater. That's when I realized there was a problem with the controls that directed the heat. No matter which way the knob was turned, it would only blow in our faces, exactly where we didn't want it. Next time I was in the shop, I removed the center dash trim around the control, fervently hoping the problem was there on the top side.
Of course, it wasn't. It never is. The problem was buried far down in the bowels of the dash, at the other end of two different cables. That meant I had two problems, not one. Remember the red arrow? It points to the U-shaped panel covering the area in question. ALL the other stuff had to be removed to gain access and remove fasteners. The Haynes manual for the car was superb for this, spelling out in detailed text and photos the order of removal, and even where all the fasteners were.
Once uncovered, the problem was exactly as I feared: the 17-year-old plastic mounts for the two cables controlling the heat direction had broken. They were absolutely inaccessible, and there was nowhere to try to engineer a fix - even though that didn't stop me from trying for about four hours over two days. Only one of the spots was even accessible enough for a photo. The yellow arm moves back and forth to control part of the airflow, and the yellow Bowden cable should have been clamped at its end to the broken plastic boss behind it.
I had never really paid attention to how these controls work, but it's pretty interesting. Look at the two pictures below:
The upper picture shows the control assembly just behind the control knobs. As you can see, there are actually three different cables, and VW cleverly color-coded them to make the far end easier to troubleshoot. The white cable controls the temperature, and thankfully it was working perfectly. The yellow cable controls whether the air is directed at your face, or to a position where the direction is controlled by the blue cable. The blue cable controls whether the air goes to your feet or to the defroster.
Once I understood all of that, it helped me decide what was important in this fix. Before I even starting removing all of those panels, I was certain it would be impossible to get everything working again. Bowden cables are used specifically for places that are inaccessible and have no good mounting points! I was willing to take it apart just to make it permanently in heater mode if necessary. Ringo's mission is primarily as a winter vehicle, even though it has a great air conditioner too.
But now, understanding how it works, I had a different goal. The yellow cable I came to think of as the "winter/summer" cable. I was fine with changing that twice a year in the fall and spring. In Fall mode, the air direction is really controlled only by the blue cable's flap. In Spring mode, it's only in the face-level vents, as if the knob was pointed at 3 o'clock.
But the blue cable switched from heat to defrost, and for a winter rat, that HAD to work somehow. Of course, it was the less accessible of the two. I spent substantial time during those two days either crouching on the shop floor peering under the dash, or in what is the classic position for that sort of work: head and shoulders on the floorboard under the steering wheel, butt upside down on the seat, and feet sticking above the seat back. I'm really sorry there was no one around to get a picture of that pose! (Not...)
For the yellow cable, I just removed the entire cable, and duct taped the arm in the Winter position. Next spring, I'll change it to Summer. For the blue cable, I tried several things, mostly centering around zip ties. By experimentation, I realized that the clamp point didn't have to be at the exact end of the cable sheath, and it could be off-axis quite a bit and still work. I got the idea for a carrier, and cut and filed some slots in a piece of aluminum strap. The idea was that a pair of zip ties would hold the cable, and the slots would keep the zip ties from slipping:
This failed miserably, because the cable was too slippery, and I couldn't pull the zip ties tight enough working under the dash. But it had promise, so I kept experimenting. I made a smaller second piece, and filed matching notches. Then, I clamped it in the vise, and drilled down the center of the two pieces, creating a slot on each side. The cable was metric, of course, measuring 5 mm. I used a number 9 bit, which is just shy at 4.98 mm. I drilled deep enough that it went all the way through the short piece. Here's the bit in the hole once done:
Just to give it a name, that's the "strut." I detached the blue cable at the bottom and pulled it back up through the dash, so I could actually work with it. I attached the strut to the cable with the zip ties, and found that it held the cable very securely, and still allowed the inner cable to move. Then I worked it back down through the dash and reattached the loop to the foot/defrost lever. Here's the attached strut before it disappeared into the dash. You can just see at the bottom end the two holes I drilled for later attachment to something or other.
With a bit of experimentation, I found a spot where the cable could be attached, and the strut end with the holes was accessible. I cut a wooden "peg leg" and attached it to the strut, and loosely screwed the other end to a convenient plastic piece. And it worked! I can rotate the knob and change the direction of the air from foot to defrost, or mix both. Here's the wooden piece, with the top of the strut barely visible.
That left only one problem. Remember the picture of all those dash panels with the arrow? If I put all that back in, I'll have to take it back out twice a year to change the summer/winter flap. I did the obvious thing: I left the U-shaped cover piece out and reinstalled everything else, leaving access to the summer/winter flap. Someday I may make a cover that can be removed without taking everything out, but it doesn't look too bad now, and after all, the car is a winter rat. It should look a little ratty!
Actually, I didn't quite reinstall all the dash. I left this part off for now:
I've never seen an easier arrangement for changing the stereo. Ringo already has an older replacement stereo. The radio works, but it's old and the CD player is dead, and it doesn't have all the modern stuff I want and need (iPod, SD card and USB input, Bluetooth). I had a new stereo on the agenda of projects, so now's the time. I'm going shopping!
You know, when I was 20 I could work under the dash of a car for hours, all upside down, and suffer no ill effects. But at 60... the next morning after this project, I had pulled muscles in every muscle group. I felt like I had been hit by a truck, and still have plenty of aches. But I'm kinda proud that I was able to get this working. The car wouldn't be a good winter rat without it, and there's literally no way I could have gotten anyone else to figure out a way to fix this. It's a kludge, but it's my kludge and I'm sticking with it!
Nice bit of troubleshooting there Emery.
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