hot air

If you recognise this I'm interested in your answer! Hot air control snapped off...in the process of replacing it I noticed a lot of friction in the control cable. It's not the hot water tap this is quite free. What does this white plastic plate do and what is the behind the spindle going into the air box? Perhaps I need to open it up and see...but welcome any explanatory help here pls and what to check.

The design of the HVAC in an LT Oka is one of the things they got wrong big time.
The actual control panel on the front of the dash in an LT is from a Rodeo or Camira depending on what was available at the time of the build. The actually HVAC box was hand made and rumour has it took a week for one bloke to make,
When you operate the hot slider on the dash the cable goes to the RHS of the HVAC box where it operates a lever which has a second cable that goes down into the radiator tunnel and operates the actual heater tap which is on the side of the tunnel about where the drivers left foot rests and is inaccessible except by either removing the radiator or and Orangatang.from the rear. Lots of owners have removed the heater tap from this position and mounted it up near the engine where it should have been in the first place. I would speak to Paul for any further info.

Thanks P&S for the explanation...Fixed for now by replacing to 30 year old heater operating cable and rerouting it somewhat. Then replacing the plastic control arms with metal ones. Finally removing the plastic spindles from the arm centres and replacing with M6 bolts run through oil hose as bearings...works surprisingly well so we're back in HVAC heaven. Ah yes I also cut open the front of the airbox more fully to give a full height access door and made an Alu cover for it having cleaned it out and silicone lubed the airbox door/flap polythene spindle bearings...Hope to have seen the last of this for a couple of years I hope!

When you have the airbox open and have bent the top cover up so you can access the heater core (which is from a Torana) you can then pull it out and flip it 180 degrees which after you have the heater core pipe connections twisted around to horizontal means you can put the heater tap up near the engine and run the heater pipes directly to it rather than down into the duct.

...it's a sensible suggestion but for now it works, so will leave until it doesn't. Kelvin fitted a new heater tap when he did the engine change 30,000 k's ago so will last a few years yet I hope.