Date:         Tue, 1 May 2007 10:31:53 -0700
Reply-To:     Don Hanson <dhanson@GORGE.NET>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Don Hanson <dhanson@GORGE.NET>
Subject:      New VW Vans, more random ramblings.(longish).
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252"

 Dunno about Bean Counters, Good Products, Engineers, etc.  Especially when it comes to German auto production.

 I recently sold a Porsche racecar that I spent all my money on.  A 928 GT, 91 but built into an open class racer with a stroker crank and lots of other trick parts.  575 hp, dynoed, at the wheels, and quite capable of beating the new 996/997 Factory P-car racers as well as almost any other big bore racer.  I knew, going in, that I would run out of money racing without full sponsorship, but I did it anyhow, just because..

  But getting back into a Vanagon after 5 years of working on that 928, man, was I in heaven!  I mean, talk about 'simple' (as compared to that one-time flagship of the Porsche line)  I had almost vowed to never ever own another German car after dealing with the 928.

  Then I found a nice old Beetle for a good deal, and started using that as my daily driver when diesel went past $3 a gal.  I enjoyed the simplicity of that one for a while, but getting everything inside was difficult and external bike racks aren't very good in the Pacific Northwest climate..so I started thinking...Vanagon?  Syncro?  Westphalia?

 I recalled how I loved my old VW van, and I'd seen plenty of Vanagons on the highways as I went to and fro, towing my racecar around with the Ford diesel truck to various tracks.  I thought, "They are the right size, they do ok on the highway, seem to last, and they get better fuel economy than my pickup (which is getting a bit 'Long in the Tooth' with 350k miles of hauling 18,000lbs of GVW)  Then this passenger van came along with the 1.8 l inline conversion, close to my location and for just $3k.  Went and looked and drove home (luckily, I-5 is pretty flat between Tacoma and Portland) in it, pulling my old Beetle behind..

  I think Fritz and Franz, the German engineers, got it right on the Vanagon.  They kept in mind, as they put stuff in, that someone someday would have to work on that...whatever...and left you a way to get to most everything...

Not so on the Porsche line..They are designed to PREVENT a non/ dealer mechanic from doing anything.  Heck, I think you even have to pull the motor in a Boxster to change the sparkplugs.

  My 928, before it transitioned (with great deal of difficulty) into a race car, had over 30 relays and almost 60 fuses, just in the fuse box alone...And all of them 'cross-wired' in very complex, counter-intuitive ways so that sometimes you would not have a clue..

One example?  The second fan (yes, there were two cooling fans in the radiator) was wired through the stereo amp controller, which was a part of the 'inertial sensor' under the 7 way power passenger seat.  The inertial sensor controlled some of  the input to the PSD (computer controlled Limited slip differential) which 'self-tested' every start-up and disabled the fuel pump relay which was connected to the ignition circuit, all of that was cross-connected to the ABS computer and to the wheel sensors, which was connected to the cruise control, connected to the.....Cutting to the chase, that car rarely ran for long without major trouble shooting and fiddle farting with the 14 volumes of workshop manual(s)...Ugg...

Once, I went cross country to Road America for a race only to blow a timing belt after 3 warm up laps...7 days of driving for about 6 mins of track time.  Oh, that broken belt?  Resulted in  28 out of 32 valves being bent (we didn't diagnose 'broken timing belt' right away and continued cranking it over,  trying to get the car to start, swapping computers, etc etc)...Valves for that car were just $140 each..  

  So the next time you lament on how hard it is to do something on your Vanagon, just think of Hanson and his 928..The new vans seem more like that 928 than like traditional VWs.  Vanagon content?  sort of 

.Don Hanson.