Itinerant Air-Cooled

So, what I thought was an empty hole turns out to be a twist switch in my 1980 Vanagon. It is on the dash, to the left of the heater controls, and behind the steering wheel...it sparks when you stick a knife in it... Any idea what it controls? Does this van have a blower motor? The ones with blowers I have seen have switches integrated into the heater levers...

Thanks!

That's a +12v accessory power plug. Good thing you didn't burn your van down. I believe it's powerlet form factor.

Some aircooled vanagons had a rear blower, which drew fresh air from under the bench seat, and pushed it through Eberspacher heater booster located under the van.

Otherwise, squirrel cage off crank would be the only thing pushing the air into the cabin.

What kinds of accessories? It is nothing like the traditional cigarette plug...

Anything traditional cigarette adapter would take. Google powerlet adapter.

Ooooo...that's interesting.

cegammel wrote: ↑

Sun Jan 21, 2018 11:27 am

So, what I thought was an empty hole turns out to be a twist switch in my 1980 Vanagon. It is on the dash, to the left of the heater controls, and behind the steering wheel...it sparks when you stick a knife in it...

A twist-to-turn switch would be a heater blower switch if it was immediately adjacent to the levers. Late water-cooled Vanagons ran the rear seat heater to the left of the controls, defroster blower switch to the right.

If it sparks when you stick a knife in it, don't stick a knife in it.
Colin

Yeah...the inner post really looked like it had a notch for a switch, and it spins...and then it sparks... I was really hoping for a heater blower, as that van is coooooold. I also need to find a new place to put a radio cut off to save my battery.

Take a picture, will ya.

After looking at pictures of powerlets, I'm sure you are correct...I had never heard of such a thing.

Hmm, I had never heard of "powerlet" before, but ratwell has a page dedicated to what he called the "silver socket", for lack of a better term.

This powerlet thing seems to be fairly recent adoption of the silver socket by the powersport industry. Which is great, 'cause it increases the utility of the socket for us (heated jacket, anyone?)

It's very popular on motorcycles. BMW motorcycles come with powerlets.