When William and I were at Pull-A-Part last weekend we spent a few minutes looking over the remains of a Bug. The Pull-A-Part sticker on the side said it was a 65 . . . The chassis and floor pan was cut off right behind the seats and the plate in the spare tire well was gone, so we couldn't tell for sure, but we both said "This ain't no '65!" It had small windows, pockets where simaphores used to be and it had a metal brake fluid resevior. There really wasn't much left to the car, but it did have one interesting feature I've never seen. Someone had added a big blower to it back in the package tray. The input opening was turned down towards the bottom of the tray and the output end was mounted to the rear firewall. It did not appear that any type of ductwork had ever been hooked to it. I wish I had made a picture of it. What the heck was it for? Well after a little talking it over, William and concluded that it a heater booster.
It obviously sucked air out of the cabin, and blew it at the cooling fan on the engine. Now think about it . . . you are adding a little bit of pressure to the air being sucked into the fan, so you should have more air for the engine and heater boxes. That should help force heated air into the cabin shouldn't it? Be we felt the REAL boost would be from sucking air out of the cabin. Old bugs were notorious for being almost air tight. If you suck air out of the cabin, the air pressure in the cabin goes down in addition to the fan "forcing" air through the heater boxes and into the cabin, you now have a low pressure draw pulling on it. I bet with the right blower (this one was pretty big) you could double the air flow through the heater boxes, and it would be E-Z to install! And if it would work on a bug, I bet it would work on a Bus. I'll have to try it on Homer when I get him back on the road!
