The original responder should have said you got 'instant heat' if you lived
in a moderate climate. In Alaska, I had a "gas heater" in my bug and my VW
van too. It was the only way to get enough heat out of those air-cooled
vehicles to defrost the windows, let alone give you more than just a cold
blast of air through the vents.

In the bug, the gas heater sat under the hood (trunk in front). Quite an
interesting heater too. It had one 12-volt motor, which spun the air
blower, a fuel pump, and a cam-driven set of points. The air blower blew
air over a combustion chamber and into the car's heater vent system. The
fuel pump pumped fuel out of the gas tank through an atomizing nozzle into
the combustion chamber. The set of points ran switched-DC through a regular
automotive coil to produce a high-voltage pulsed DC that continually sparked
a huge spark gap (about 1/4") on a special spark plug. Pretty simple rig.
Air came into the combustion chamber and the exhaust went out a pipe into
the left front wheel well. If you had the wheel turned hard left and took
too long getting going, you'd smell burning rubber from the tire standing
under the exhaust too long. The heater didn't get hard to start until it
was about -20 F or so, but it would usually start eventually (after
producing a lot of black smoke). The gas heater in the van was a bit more
sophisticated but used the same principles of operation, but the air came in
from inside the van and out an exhaust under the van. The heater was
mounted under the driver's seat.

Brian

--
My boat project: http://www.advantagecomposites.com/tongass


"Harry Krause" wrote in message
...
Clams Canino wrote:

If you recall the heritage of the Volkswagon, it's no surprise it tried
to
gas you.

-W


"Larry Weiss" wrote in message
...

Woah! I had one of those Beetles way back then. It leaked CO so bad
it
nearly
killed me. I would worry about any heating system that utilizes a heat
exchanger off the exhaust manifolds.

Larry Weiss
"...Ever After!"
"a little after..."





I have a vague memory of my Model 411 (well, something like that)
burning raw gasoline to make heat. But perhaps my memory is playing me
tricks.



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