Date:         Sat, 17 May 2008 23:01:38 -0700
Reply-To:     John Bange <jbange@GMAIL.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         John Bange <jbange@GMAIL.COM>
Subject:      Re: AC Controls
In-Reply-To:  <00bd01c8b8a4$e4899bb0$6401a8c0@DJZL7KF1>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

> There's no problem about 1980 , 1981 and 'some early 1983'
>  Air cooled vanagons I don't think.

Yeah, 80-very early 81 had the metal welded in grills on the D-column
air intakes, but I can't tell apart "most of 81, 82, first half of 83"
apart from casual inspection.

> Ever seen a really early 80 air cooled vanagon with a very simple small horn
> pad ?

The rectangular hard plastic horn button in the center, like you
always see on surplus Bundeswehr T3's on ebay.de?

> Got it clear about the first half or so of 85's - they still have the
> stamped lower control arms and left over 83- 84 style  metal main coolant
> pipes, then when they ran out of those, they went to 'normal 85' cast iron
> lower control arms and plastic main coolant pipes. Got that down right ?

Well, I'm kinda going for a "quickie" list, the sort of thing you can
memorize easily and run through when you drive by one on the street,
or see one at the gas station. If I'm friendly enough with the driver
to be eyeballing his control arms and coolant lines, I can probably
just look at the VIN plate or even ASK him the year.

Besides, 85 is an easy (if not THE easiest) year: last year of the
round headlights, first year of the smaller sliding door handle.

> When did they start the AC that runs along the center roof line front to
> back ?

Factory AC with the center duct was part of the big revamp in 86

> When did aerodynamic outside mirrors become available. Were they ever
> standard equipment on late vans, and which models ?

Power mirrors were another 86 and up item, but were optional equipment.

> Power steering was not available on 83.5 waterboxers, but was from 84 on, -
> got that right.
> And Mark will tell you about tachs being on Wolfy 84 Westy's
> standard.......but then not on the next year's model or something.
>
> The changes and variations are myriad.

Yeah, those are a little too esoteric for my needs. I mostly just want
to be able to walk up to a Vanagon owner and impress (scare?) them by
saying "Nice 87 you got there!"  So far I have it down to this:
(items in [brackets] are what was "new" that year)

80-81.25    One grill, metal D-pillar intakes
(81-84      Two grills, diesel badge on back)
81.25-83.5 One grill, [plastic D-pillar intakes]
83.5-84     [Two grills], long slider door handle
85             Round headlights, [short slider handle]
86-87         [Square headlights], no flow thru vents in aft side
windows
88             [Flow-thru vents, large VW emblem], chrome window trim
89             flow thru vents, [black rubber window trim]
90-91         [AC controls on dash]

I'm fairly certain they changed nothing from 90-91, as they were
anticipating winding down production and switching to the T4.

--
John Bange
'90 Vanagon - "Geldsauger"
'90 Vanagon GL - "Wiesel"