Date:         Thu, 8 Jun 2006 18:08:07 -0400
Reply-To:     Kragen Sitaker <kragen@POBOX.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Kragen Sitaker <kragen@POBOX.COM>
Subject:      Broke down in Omaha

My wife and I have been on the road in our '82 air-cooled 2-liter
fuel-injected Vanagon for a while now; since my last post, we've
driven from Kansas to Ohio, then back to New Mexico, then up to Omaha,
where we burned a hole through one of our pistons.  Cram Foreign Auto
Parts on 72nd Street, staffed entirely with Volkswagen enthusiasts,
has been very helpful in getting stuff fixed, and they contract out
the engine rebuild work to a guy named John.

We've replaced more leaking fuel-injection lines during that time,
gotten a new spare tire (although I couldn't get a matching spare ---
wouldn't fit), glued the driver window gasket in place, replaced the
broken pop-top joint and broken another one, made replacement
refrigerator knobs out of Shapelock, snapped the fog light switch back
into place, and "fixed" the passenger window so it would roll back up
and down three times.

It's still noisy, gets 16mpg, has stinky exhaust, has a broken heater,
leaks gasoline from the top of the tank (I think a new breather hose
set would solve this, but I don't know where to get one on the road),
doesn't have a working odometer, and has the battery isolator hooked
up wrong.

We bought a canvas-bag top carrier from a Dollar General store for $10
IIRC; we fasten it to the boards that are bungeed to the top rails.
In it we put low-value items we wouldn't mind having stolen.

It's been a pretty amazing trip so far.  At the moment, we're up in
Minneapolis in a rental car, which gets 23mpg and therefore costs less
to drive long distances, even with the rental fee.

We added presets for the passenger-side rear-view mirror as follows.
We put a permanent-marker cross on the outside of the door, where the
passenger can see it in the rear-view mirror.  Then we marked a spot
on the mirror where the cross appears, and a third spot on the inside
of the (rolled-up) window.  Now to align the mirror correctly, the
passenger need only adjust the mirror (sticking their hand through the
small triangular window) until the three spots align in a line.  We
have an additional spot on the inside of the window for a second
preset indicating my preferred mirror position.

John, the engine rebuilding guy, called to say that we were very
lucky; we hadn't spoiled the heads, but we'd burned through one piston
and a second one was just about to go.  I'm glad it wasn't the valves.