Date: Sat, 3 May 2003 23:30:06 -0700
Reply-To: Westyman <thewestyman@MINDSPRING.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Westyman <thewestyman@MINDSPRING.COM>
Subject: Road Haus #1 lives on: A road trip adventure
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As the buyer of the first of the line of Road Haus vans designed by the
infamous Larry Chase, I must report to the Vanagon World that Road Haus #1
has now finally found it's new home in the safety of western Maryland, just
four months after I purchased it from Larry. Some of you may remember the
van as the doggy-doo-brown (I'm thinking of naming the van 'Turd") 1985
Westy that Larry first tried his eccentric ideas on. A friend of Larry's had
stored it at his home in Phoenix until I had the opportunity to retrieve it,
which I finally found time to do last week. Other than a wonderful coat of
Phoenix's finest desert sediment, it appeared just as I had seen it back in
January. The first thing to go on the scrap-pile (insane modifications that
Larry had installed) was the flat-screen TV system. I'm into nature, not
the nightly propaganda reports from the White House. Then to properly
install the curtains so that I could actually use them, secure the battery
connections that were haphazard, and tighten the floppy mirrors so that I
could see the monstrous trucks before they were about to run me over. When I
started it, it even SOUNDED the same. Rattle rattle cough rattle. Good
grief, I thought "what have I done, will this piece of crap engine (1.9 wbx)
actually move this fine van over the mountains east of Phoenix, and then be
expected to go a further 2000 miles at 70 mph to Maryland?" Well, the
clatter quieted down after about a half hour, only to be replaced soon after
by the drone of a leaky exhaust header, which never became objectionable in
tone from my vantage point at the helm of this ship. Most days, the thing
actually had some semblance of power, but maybe those were the days with
tailwinds pushing us along. At the first fuel stop, I noticed the
all-too-familiar odor of fresh coolant-on-a-hot-pipe. The right cylinder
head had developed a crack around one of the visible head retaining nuts,
and was dribbling the precious green onto the rear-most exhaust pipe.
Keeping a close eye this new problem, I found that I needed to refill the
rear bottle every 100 to 150 miles, so we actually made it home with the
loss of 5 or so gallons of coolant. Much to my surprise, the little tired
powerplant used a meager one quart of engine oil for the entire 2300 or so
miles, and achieved a constant 19 to 20 mpg! Larry said the van would
'probably' make it across the width of the US, and he was right! Now Turd
will rest for a few more months before he has a new turbodiesel heart
replacing the tired wbx, along with taller stiffer springs and bigger,
meatier tires. He will become my Westy fix during those long months while
Otto, my turbodiesel Syncro, is under the knife/torch to correct arrest his
downslide into the netherworlds of rustdom.
My only hope for my dear friend Larry is that his new 'Wunder-engine
revision-E' will be as trouble-free as this one has been. For some reason I
have my doubts, but wish him the best. Maybe the 1.9 would be better suited
for the task.
Karl Mullendore
Westy Ventures
Back off the road again, for a short spell
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