en, Ouch what a bummer. I feel for you because that same kind of thing has happened to me sooo many times. I figure I must relish the idea of being in trouble on the side of the road, at least that was the case before I bough my '89 3 years ago which knock on wood, is performing well. Any way, you are right, we discussed all that recently. Un fortunately, most of my personal archive of that conversation is on my hard drive and I'm housesitting using someone elses computer. I can reiterate some resources here, and others will as well I am sure. See Tiico.com, or search tiico. THats my personal favorite based on what I have been heaing on the list serve etc. Its like a Jetta engine, retrofitted for vanagon. THey also have used waterboxer engines on the site, from folks doing conversions. THen there are waterboxer used and rebuilt. I'm sure you could find the range from just pulled no modifiations, to rebuilt heads, rebuilt cyl, all the way down to new aftermarket case like GEX. I personally would stay away from high end aftermarket Waterboxer, because the damn engine is doomed from the start, and the best value would be in a either a low cost waterboxer, or go with a conversion. Conversion would cost you more, but you got a 90 so there are years of value left in the chassis. Ive done lots of engine work on air cooled but this is new territory for me so dont think I'm Mr expert. THe reason I know anything is from asking the same question you did a month ago for myself out of curiousity, and then pretending it was 18-36 months down the road....when I expect to be facing the next $2000+ bill for head repair (again). Make sure you mechanic quotes you for a conversion , if you choose to do that. It may add to the cost because it is not as straight forward, but not like crazy weird either from what I ahve heard. Some guy in Renton WA converted a syncro. I dont know where you live on I-5, but he likely has resources in seattle, although it sounds like he did the work himself. Michael SChiesser > Hi, folks. > > I was driving down I-5 yesterday when some very loud sounds started coming out of > my engine (1990 Vanagon MV Westy, 115,000 miles). I was able to get it to the > shoulder right away, and we towed it to a VW repair biz. The mechanic said that > the motor needs to be replaced. > > What are my options for replacing the engine? He said that he'd put a rebuilt > engine in for $3,300, or I could find an engine and he'd install it for $720 (12 > hours). > > I realize that this has probably been discussed extensively in the past, but ya > never pay close attention until the crisis hits home. > > -- Ken Taylor > ktaylor@premier1.net
===== Michael Schiesser MD 1418 24th Ave Seattle WA 98122 "Fruitlands" is name given to the region around Harvard Mass by early settlers. We dont live there any more, but I did when I chose the fruitlands user name. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Free email you can access from anywhere! http://mail.yahoo.com/ |
Please note - During the past 17 years of operation, several gigabytes of
Vanagon mail messages have been archived. Searching the entire collection
will take up to five minutes to complete. Please be patient!
Return to the archives @ gerry.vanagon.com
The vanagon mailing list archives are copyright (c) 1994-2011, and may not be reproduced without the express written permission of the list administrators. Posting messages to this mailing list grants a license to the mailing list administrators to reproduce the message in a compilation, either printed or electronic. All compilations will be not-for-profit, with any excess proceeds going to the Vanagon mailing list.
Any profits from list compilations go exclusively towards the management and operation of the Vanagon mailing list and vanagon mailing list web site.