A colleague here is looking at purchasing a Beetle for daily use, and one that he's found is rather sharp, but has no heater boxes. I had mentioned the venerable Eberspacher BN2. In searching for one on eBay, he found someone selling an Espar AirTronic D2 cab space heater designed for over-the-road truck cabs.
A quick look at the manufacturer's website reveals some interesting points that I have not seen previously discussed here. If I am repeating old info, I apologize.
Jim O'Malley --
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Espar Products Inc. (Eberspacher, North America) was established in
1973. Espar was not involved with the sale or service of BN2 or BN4 heaters in any way. The Espar technical service department has very limited knowledge of VW heaters and is not able to offer any troubleshooting advise. Also, original spare parts are not available. Espar Products Inc. is able to send photocopies of the original BN2 or BN4 manuals. Please remit your complete mailing address with any manual requests.There are shops throughout North America that may be able to help to you. Please ask your local Volkswagen dealer, search the Internet, or check with other VW enthusiasts for shops that repair or rebuild Eberspacher BN2 or BN4 heaters. [Ed. note: been there, discussed that, threw away the t-shirt. jo]
You may be interested in replacing your heater with a modern, more efficient and technically advanced model. The heaters best suited to replace BN2 and BN4 heaters are the B1LC compact and B3LC compact, respectively. [Ed. note: B-series are gas-fired counterparts to their main-line D1LC & D3LC diesel-fired heaters. jo]
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Follow the link posted above for more information. Espar is a Canadian company:
Espar Heater Systems
6435 Kestrel Rd. Mississauga, Ontario L5T 1Z8 Tel: 905-670-0960 Fax: 905-670-0728 Toll-free Canada: (800) 668-5676 U.S. (800) 387-4800