Date:         Wed, 24 Oct 2007 08:20:48 -0700
Reply-To:     Stuart Jeff <stuart@STUARTJEFF.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Stuart Jeff <stuart@STUARTJEFF.COM>
Subject:      Finding a mechanic
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Right out of the gate I want to apologize for this email. I can't seem to get the archive search to work correctly and google hasn't been much help. My apologies if this is well worn territory.

The short version:
Anybody know of a good water-cooled Westy mechanic near Baltimore?

The long version:
I'm the proud, relatively new, owner of a 1984 Westy and I've run into a problem. I've never been one to work on my own cars but I recently decided it was time for that to change. My father is a car nut (Volvos specifically) and as I get older, watching him through the years has made me want to get my hands dirty. So I bought this van with the hopes that I could use it to learn a few things about working on cars and it'd give me and my dad something to chat about. The first few months have been great but I haven't needed to do anything serious to the van just yet. My dad lives over 800 miles away and is always happy to chat on the phone about how I could approach this or that problem but at the end of the day I'm the one turning the wrenches.

So, the problem is that my wife and I have fallen in love with this van and are using it WAY more than we thought we would when we bought it. I'm driving this thing all over the place and its got 210,000 miles on it. Also, we don't have a garage or even a drive way. I'm out there working on this thing in the street so any major surgery is going to be a serious PITA. Before I reach a big crisis point I think its time to find a backup mechanic that I can take my van to when I've thrown up my hands and just want to drive around again. Do any of you fine folks know the best way to find a good Vanagon mechanic in Baltimore? 

Thanks a lot for any suggestions!
Stuart