Date:         Mon, 20 Oct 2003 09:25:19 -0500
Reply-To:     Andrew Gies <andrew_gies@CANGENE.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Andrew Gies <andrew_gies@CANGENE.COM>
Subject:      interior removed from Westy (eventually its a battery question)
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

Happy Monday to all -

Well I managed to remove the entire interior (rear of the front seats) from
my '86 Westy over the past couple weekends.  I had a couple of reasons for
doing this:

- to attend to some rust on the interior of the wall along the utility
inlets - prior to winter storage
- I want to coat the interior with sound deadening material (next spring)

All in all, with a Bentley in hand, it wasn't too tricky to get everything
out (getting it back in, well that's another question).  I have to say that
by far the hardest thing to do was to get the bloody battery out of the
compartment beneath the front passenger seat.  Somewhere in the recent
lifetime of my Westy, a PO measured the space where the battery is
installed, sized up a battery within a millimetre off his measurements, and
proceeded to shoehorn in said battery.  This same battery required two hours
of me cursing a blue streak and the full involvement of two people to
remove.

So this leads me into my question.  What is the "stock" size for a Vanagon
Westy battery?  I forgot to write down what kind of battery I removed, but
it looks like an everyday run of the mill battery -  and nothing like the
battery illustrated in the Bentley.  I am not running the van thru winter,
so I do not need any excess cold cranking amps.

Would someone please lead me in the direction of a suitable battery that can
be installed and removed with ease?


P.S.  If you want to improve the performance in a Westy - just tear out the
interior.  I took mine out for a quick spin with an empty interior, and it
was accelerating up the hills!

All of you Canadian or salty winter list members - keep those seals along
the utility inlets in good working order.  Any water that gets past there is
a disaster!  If you suspect some rust in there, rip out the interior, and
get rid of that gawd awful yellow insulation - it only serves as a holding
receptacle to ensure maximum rust damage on the interior.

Andrew

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