Date: Tue, 5 Jan 2010 17:50:41 -0800
Reply-To: Scott Daniel - Turbovans <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Scott Daniel - Turbovans <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM>
Subject: Re: Solution to Reliability Problem - sorry, long
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I'd say I'm not your 'average vanagon owner', since I own over a dozen,
restore them to full health, sell them, and sell parts for them, and work on
them, and do Subaru conversions and some diesel etc. etc.
but.....I don't have a problem. I'll say they can take some serious sorting
out to get them to full health after years of 'just being driven' or being
neglected ( and I do feel sad for people that are at the mercy of car repair
shops in general - the amount of poor or incorrect or 'not done' work I see
is just horrible, and people pay good money for that too ) .
I just carry a full set of known-good and previously tested things like an
air flow meter, a Temp II sensor, a fuel pump, fuel pump relay, fuel
filter/s , a spare distributor, a spare ECU etc. All purchased on the cheap
at pick n' pull yards, and immediately tested, so I know they're good.
the total weight and volume of these spare parts, some tools, and some
test equipment is about ..........the whole under the rear seat area of a
Weekender ( 2 person across size ) rear seat, with the rear heater removed -
not a huge penalty in weight or space.
You need some diagnostic abilities of course , but once well up on the
learning curve, it's not too hard to deal with things that happen.
I would also like to add - it's my perception that people regard working on
their vanagon as a 'bad thing' , like other than service, working on it is
to be avoided.
That is opposite of my thinking. Every time I work on a vanagon, I know
it's doing it good, since taking things apart keeps them from getting
corroded together, something that happens all too easily to some vanagons.
Like I cringe when I hear heads have been on for 15 years, because I know
how badly corroded together it's likely to be after that length of time.
You get corrosion at the bottom of head stud, you go to undo the head nut,
the stud breaks off down in the bottom of the block- that's a real pain to
fix - it's barely possible.
So, removing cylinder heads, is a *good* thing, not a bad thing.
The same is true throughout the entire van. The more you service and lube
things, treat rust and corrosion, examine electrical stuff, etc etc. the
better. There are battery boxes full of battery acid for example. Easily
preventable, just by working on it.
I guess I'm different though - it's not just 'driving it' that is the
reward. Having it work very nicely, due to my clever intense work, that is
a huge part of the reward of owning and driving it.
there is also the Psychic Healing Affect.
I swear, if you clean out a car or van from one end to the other, clean and
was and polish the whole outside, treat the windows with Rain-X, shine up
the rubber trim, adjust the tire pressures, check the spare tire air
pressure .....in other words a full day's worth of just cleaning and
servicing ............the car or van will run better !
the affect is huge actually. I think it's because we start becoming masters
of our van or car, where it does our bidding, because it's a thing, like a
piece of clay, that we have molded and shaped and fine tuned to our needs
and desires. It's like ART, to take care of anything. even just a quick
shot of lube to door latches and hinges, or seat belt latches, or key lock
cylinders - that all adds up, to you 'owning' .......not owning the van, by
"owning" your personal investment in it, like make it into something of
YOURS, that you determine how well it works.
And ....if you can't do say, clutch jobs and cylinder head jobs, no
problem. Just do DO what you can. And, afer all , there is no shop you can
take your van to that will do all the tiny myriad little things that they
can benefit from. I find about 250 places on them to lube, most of them
never done since the van left the factory.
And some things, you almost can't do enough - like changing the coolant.
You never get all the old stuff out. Anti-freeze deteriorates in its
ability to prevent corrosion. If you don't put in a fresh application of
anti-freeze coolant mixture now and then .......
Nasty Ol' Corrosion gets going, and badly. Like metal cooling system parts
that won't come apart without breaking. You can't change coolant too often.
Even once a year wouldn't be too frequently.
AND ..........when you do operations like that, you find other things that
need attention if you're really looking and have some aptitude .....all of
which make your van better for you, and increase your confidence in it, and
especially, increase your confidence in yourself about your van. Just be
careful, and work your self up to more intense repair and service procedures
as you gain experience.
It's fun !
I can't help being self-taught. Go to a junk yard, find a ......whatever,
a good used distributor for your type of vanagon, check the timing first (
timing lights start as inexpensively as 25 dollars, and have other
diagnostic uses besides just checking ignition timing ) , swap in the new
distributor, test drive it , and so forth. I run whichever one I felt was
best, or could tell was best, mark it with a number or letter so I don't get
it mixed up with my 'normal one I run' and keep the other in the van under
the back seat, and a few tools.
and just keep going like that. And ......with this list, the world's
greatest sum of vanagon knowledge, not to mention what is available online
......you can fix your van, and keep it alive on long trips, and get better
work done on it as well, compared to having ordinary repair shops work on
it.
Heck, my own 7 year old daughter's family had their Volvo break down in
Idaho once upon a time. The shop said it needed a new fuel pump and pointed
to something in the engine compartment, saying it was the fuel pump. She had
just helped me service that Volvo, and that 7 year old female child told
that shop it wasn't the fuel pump, and she was right, since she had been
under the thing with me, servicing the fuel filter which was right next to
the fuel pump under the car. My point is.........the more you can do it
yourself, or at least KNOW how to do it, the better off you are. Most shops
just find 'justifiable profitable repairs' to do to get your money, which
has nothing to do with actually *serving* you the best way, and spending
your money on your car the best way.
The more you can do yourself, and the more you know about your car or van,
the less you will throw money away at typical car repair shops. I had a
customer recently, and upon examining an invoice for an expensive engine
installation, we found charges on the bill for parts that not only were not
on the van, they wouldn't even FIT on that particular model of van !
So the more you know, the better off you are. Plus it's fun too. And
the better you get at it, the more you know how not to get dirty and
greasy, etc.
Anyway, I encourage everyone to learn to work on their vanagon, or at
least get more familiar with it overall. They are so worthy of investing
energy into - vanagons !
Scott
www.turbovans.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "George Averill" <averill@MCHSI.COM>
To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Sent: Tuesday, January 05, 2010 12:45 PM
Subject: Solution to Reliability Problem
All,
I haven't posted in a while. I have an 84 Vanagon camper that runs great.
I have had it for a number of years. I don't use it much any more because
I'm afraid to go too far from home base. I'm afraid that something will
break and I will be stranded in a motel or worse while trying to locate
repair parts and someone who is willing to make a repair. That happened
once, and I don't want to repeat the experience.
Are other owners this paranoid? Is there a solution? I have just about
decided to sell the bus to someone who wants to have another hobby.
George
Cataula, GA
84 Vanagon Camper
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