Date:         Sat, 5 Jul 2003 20:18:39 EDT
Reply-To:     Willolyn99@AOL.COM
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Bill Marshall <Willolyn99@AOL.COM>
Subject:      Re: Any vanagon owners in Sacramento? or Wisconsin?(trip report)
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"

This is really weird, I'm replying to my own original posting about a
different topic...

Speaking of A/C.....My wife, the dogs, and I took a trip up to Wisconsin
today, to go hiking at Kettle Moraine State Park - North.  From Aurora, IL, it was
about a 3 hour drive including gas stop.  [Vanagon content -- the ride was
smooth and uneventful, the dogs were passed out on the back bed and the Tiico
engine was ripping through traffic at 80mph]  The last time I was in KMSP was in
1978 -- I was a Boy Scout, doing a backpacking trip as a shake-down for a 125
mi. backpacking trip on the Appalachian Trail.  Nice trip down memory lane
with the spouse.

The trails in this park are a riot -- it is constant up and down, serious
moraine country (for those who don't know, that is the area that was messed up by
the glaciation of the Ice Age, and is a series of ravines, hillocks, and
kettles).  Great hiking, with mosquitos the size of hummingbirds.  When you slap
them, they leave a blood streak a foot long.  Nice.  Not too many ticks,
though.  The kettles are cool -- if you didn't know better, you would think they
were meteor craters.  Big ol' hole in the middle of the woods.  Great place to
be, lots of trees, nice and shady.

Since the weather here has been pretty warm, we had the A/C on most of the
way home.  My A/C is a '90 A/C unit retrofitted to my '85 GL, and uses an '87
compressor.  Cobbled up piece of crap, but it kicks butt.  Uses R-134a
refrigerant and still does a good job.

(Now is where we return to the original subject)  If I come out to
Sacramento, I will be fully prepared with my super-cool A/C.  If anyone needs some help
in adding an A/C unit to their Vanagons, let me know -- I've been through all
kinds of crap with this thing, and I finally got it to work well.  All I have
to do is fix the crack that is letting the condensed water drip onto my rear
foam pad (and my sleeping dog).

Bill Marshall
85 GL Tiico "Pandora's Box"
Aurora, IL