Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 15:53:21 -0800
Reply-To: Scott Daniel - Shazam <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Scott Daniel - Shazam <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM>
Subject: Re: Overheated Westy '87
In-Reply-To: <ve7fwea6.fsf@cs.indiana.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
That's right.
I also would suggest people stop thinking stainless steel is titanium.
It's not, it can rust, and it's not very strong actually.
There are different grades and alloys of course.
I think the metal pipes are galvanized then painted black.
With care, they are sure not the weakest part of a vanagon, that's for sure.
My hunch is they went to plastic pipes just to save on production costs, and
for no other real reason. I can't say that they really are thinking about
how long the parts will last, like 20 years down the road, but much more
about production costs and will it make it through any warrantee periods.
It's always finding a balance between cost, strength, weight, and ease of
production, and possibly how long something will last, but I think that last
one is the lowest priority probably.
You can see how attractive plastic starts looking ..... - once the machine
is made to cast the part...then millions of them can be turned out at
extremely low unit cost.
There's how elegant a part looks too, in terms of automotive art -
Bugatti comes to mind ....no effort or expense spared to make it as good
looking and well made a possible. Pure automotive engineering art ! Even
heads and blocks cast as one piece.
Now THAT'S what a waterboxer needs !!!
The price of the van was already in trouble.
I have a window sticker here for a almost cherry 82 Sunroof diesel van that
I have - 13,000 dollars, plus $ 595.00 for the sun roof option. Bit spendy
at the time and in the market.
Scott
www.turbovans.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Allan Streib [mailto:streib@cs.indiana.edu]
Sent: Monday, December 03, 2007 3:27 PM
To: Scott Daniel - Shazam
Cc: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Re: Overheated Westy '87
Scott Daniel - Shazam <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM> writes:
> Yes, but if you change and service the coolant very regularly, those
> pipes will last quite a long time, unless it's external corrosion
> from a harsh environment. To protect against that, someone has to
> keep the outside of the pipes properly painted and protected from
> corrosive attack.
They should've used stainless pipes not plastic or steel, guess that
would've added a lot to the price of the van.
Allan
--
1983 300D
1966 230
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