Fishing through heater ducts

[David Hale]

In the original ElectroAuto kit they had you fish a number of cables through the driver's side heater duct, from the engine compartment to the old fuel tank compartment. I don't remember this being particularly difficult. I'm running additional cables now and need to use the heater duct on the passenger side. Is there any reason why this should be different? I've been struggling for 90 minutes now and haven't gotten one thing through. I got a fish tape through pretty quickly but my cables got stuck on something. Eventually I reduced cables until I had none, and my fish tape got stuck on whatever this something is. Is there something in there? Any suggestions? I need to run two 2ga cables and two 1/2 water hoses (7/8'' OD). Thanks, Dave.

[David Shields]

It can be done. I used a shrink wrap covering on my 2 gauge wires to armor them up a bit as I'm sure there are some sharp, rusty obstacles in that duct somewhere. I never regretted doing that.
 
Keep fishing. It can be done. 
 

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[Mark Brems]

Try wrapping the leading edge of the cables with tape, so that

they taper from the point where they attach to the fish tape.

That way, there is nothing to get stuck on. I've done it, no problem.

[David Hale]

I posted my question also on diyelectriccar.com/forums/ and someone pointed out this link to 914world,

http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showtopic=66637

which shows that there is, in fact, a separate duct in the middle of the two ends. I'll attach two pertinent photos here. I think it's entirely possible that this duct has come loose or is simply deteriorated. That would be consistent with the fact that my fish tape can only go one direction, front-to-rear. I could not feed it through the other direction (rear-to-front) and when I did feed it in through the front it got stuck when pulling it out (which would be the rear-to-front direction of pulling).

[David Hale]

Is this black panel supposed to be removable? This is the long rocker panel under the door between the front and rear wheel wells. There are a couple of screws on the bottom and one in each well but then the rest looks to be riveted. I'm wondering if I can remove this to access the heater duct. I worked on it another two hours last night; I'm stuck. Thanks, Dave.

[Peter Thompson]

Hi Dave,

If I remember correctly, you will see the top or side of the tube when you take off that panel.

Have you tried a plumbing snake?

Cheers, Peter

On Sep 10, 2015 09:32, "David Hale" <astrono...@gmail.com> wrote:

Is this black panel supposed to be removable? This is the long rocker panel under the door between the front and rear wheel wells. There are a couple of screws on the bottom and one in each well but then the rest looks to be riveted. I'm wondering if I can remove this to access the heater duct. I worked on it another two hours last night; I'm stuck. Thanks, Dave.

[David Hale]

So do I have to drill out those rivets? The screws on the underside are rusted so I'm going to have to cut the heads off, probably. I didn't want to do that though unless I was guaranteed to get access to the heater duct.

[David Shields]

That photo is not what my 914 door frame looks like. It appears to have been modified.
 
You may consider removing it by drilling the rivets out. You can always replace the rivets when you get your cables installed.
 

---

Date: Thu, 10 Sep 2015 09:31:59 -0700
Subject: Re: [914ev] Fishing through heater ducts
From: astrono...@gmail.com
To: 91...@googlegroups.com

Is this black panel supposed to be removable? This is the long rocker panel under the door between the front and rear wheel wells. There are a couple of screws on the bottom and one in each well but then the rest looks to be riveted. I'm wondering if I can remove this to access the heater duct. I worked on it another two hours last night; I'm stuck. Thanks, Dave.

[David Hale]

I found a post on 914world, what I've got appears to be stock and you just drill out the rivets to remove the rocker panel. However, that doesn't give access to the heater duct. There is no access.

I can get a fish tape in either direction but no matter which way I go, I hit what is effectively a brick wall about 2 feet in from the front end of the heater tube. I can't believe something like this is going to cripple the entire car!

[Mark Brems]

You won't have access to the heater duct when you get the black rocker cover off. 

The duct itself will still be inside, and it will look like the shot below:

I suspect there is not an actual clog, unless a rat made a house in there.

I suspect the cable snake is catching on a metal lip. If you were to make some sort

of taper out of electrical tape, it might slip past. I remember having the same issue,

and having to do something like this.

[David Hale]

I broke down and bought an inspection camera. The first pic shows the view looking into the rear end of the heater duct (the "good" end).

[David Hale]

The blockage is about where those spot welds are located. I'm wondering if I can drill a 2 inch hole there, or to one side, and remove the bad braided hose through that. Incidentally, all that brown isn't rust but glue from the carpet.

[David Hale]

Yeah, here is what those spot welds hold...