Jaycote

i did this repair this past weekend...I appreciate everyone's input. I was NOT going to go through the heater core, nor was I going to remove my dash. I thought i was going to have to live with luke warm air forever, even during cold New England winters. This was very easy to do and I was surprised I haven't seen more "how to's" using this procedure. My only question now is, since we are using tape, rather than foam, will that change anything? I'm thinking that we might only get the extreme hot or extreme cold air, rather than being able to set a temp, such as 72 degrees. I'm assuming the foam was there to allow the blending of hot/cold air to come up with a precise temperature. Now that it is sealed, i'm thinking we'll get either hot or cold, with not much in between. Is that true? Is there any downside to the tape? I used aluminum flashing tape from Home Depot....$10. Best $10 i've spent on this car!

professorman

Resealing the cut in the vent using tape is interesting. Rather than duct tape, is there any other glue that could be used before the tape? For example, maybe could use some epoxy/jb weld of some sort, then use tape over it?
I know foil tape is used to seal most home HVAC systems. I do not know the lifespan of foil tape. Would it be expected to last the remaining life of the car? Lets say 10-20 years?

details

My experience is that you get what you set it for. If the car is up to temp there is obvious heat coming out of the vents. Once the cabin is warmed up, the temp coming out the vents is appropriate (tepid). YMMV.

My thought was that using metallic tape (true duct tape) might cause some noise that Porsche was trying to avoid with dampening properties of the foam. There's also the possibility that the foam hung over the edges of the metal flaps a bit which could create a better seal with the housing. I figured I wasn't going to make anything worse by using the metallic tape. So far I haven't noticed any unusual noises. I'm very happy with the results.

I remember reading somewhere that the foam was non-porous, so in effect no different that tape in that respect.

details

You're probably right, glue or epoxy would work to seal the cut. I actually hadn't thought about that. Getting glue in there without making a mess might be a challenge, but that's probably solvable. To be honest, once I had the metallic tape in place I was surprise at how solid it felt. There was no movement when I tugged on the repaired part.

I figure it this way; my house is approaching 30 years old and the metallic tape on the duct work is still in tact, it should be sufficient for this purpose.

Ahsai

Thanks to VW...

This is a good video showing a similar fix on a vw. It gives you good ideas about how these flaps work and how they could be patched up literally.

Ahsai

dup

Eli355

For us less mechanically inclined. Is there anyone on Long Island ( Nassau / Suffolk counties ) that would do this repair for a fee?..

pesuazo

I was in process of replacing my heater core, and decided to fix that problem "since I was 90% of the way there"....included some "tips"
I documented this procedure in this thread: https://rennlist.com/forums/996-foru...the-vents.html