> Greetings. Just brought home my new 81 Westy > yesterday. It is in great shape, lots of new stuff on > it. I have been driving a 74 Westy for a couple of > years and am curious about the hi-way speed of the 81. > It really seems to struggle on the hills, even ones > that I considered to be very slight grades the van did > not take them well, quite often I had to down shift to > make it. Is this a common Vanagon trait or should I > be looking into some things?
Without driving it, it's hard to say. But your '81 is likely to be a bit more sluggish than your '74, as it has roughly the same horsepower but weighs more. Do a compression test; that will tell you a lot. Readings can sometimes vary depending on the particular gauge and other variables, so don't sweat it if you don't get exactly what the manual says you should. Mostly you're just looking for relative consistency from cylinder to cylinder. You want the readings to be within 10 or 15% all around. If compression is relatively even all around, and not horrendously low (i.e. under 100), then this is about what I'd expect of a typical used aircooled engine. - Ron Salmon The Bus Depot, Inc. (215) 234-VWVW www.busdepot.com _____________________________________________ Toll-Free for Orders by Part # 1-866-BUS-DEPOT |
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Vanagon mail messages have been archived.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.