Date:         Mon, 8 Nov 2010 18:59:05 -0800
Reply-To:     Tom Boldway <jboldway@HOTMAIL.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Tom Boldway <jboldway@HOTMAIL.COM>
Subject:      Other groups - a better one? - gasp!
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

Sorry to speak heresy but the Alfa Romeo BB (www.alfabb.com) is a better newsgroup than the vanagon newsgroup. The Vanagon newsgroup is awesome, I understand, but the brethren in the Alfa BB understand an ITALIAN (not German) machine and can repair your car over the internet a bit better than the Vanagon BB. ;~) What I find amazing is the number of people who own both a Alfa AND a VW camper. I've got a '84 Westy, a '86 Alfa Spider and a '98 E320 Mercedes Wagon. I've had the Alfa for over a year and this may sound insane but it is the one with the least repairs. I do fully understand it needs to be driven like an Italian (gas pedal has two positions - off and on, along with brake pedal which is either off or on and if you're going under 100 on the highway you are going too slow -  hard to do with traffic today). Driving it this way keeps it happy. One thing I do with all my cars is let them warm up for a few min before putting a load on them. I come home from work where I go from a parking lot to a freeway - so I let the thermostat open and the motor on the Alfa and the Vanagon open up for the same reason - both motors are unique in the automobile industry as theya re aluminum block/head with a cast iron cylinder sleeve that is fully wet - and both suffer the thermal problems of dissimilar metals on fast warm ups.
 
There's a few 1960's music groups that are pretty cool also (Like peaz-n -qs - a Quicksilver Messenger group) but they have gotten a bit too right wing for many of the members of this list ;~)
Strange how some Radical '60's folks ended up as Tea Party members ;~)
Same thing as the real cause back then, limited government is what Tea party people want. The smart ones, that is (Nomex suit on but not really needed as obviously you've mistaken me for somebody who cares.)
Tom Boldway