Ok, so I've been busy the last few months hunting down a Westy. Now I've ended up with two! We purchased them to do an east coast trip with good friends of ours. The first one is an 83 Westy originally from California. We bought that one through Scott (thank you very much for a smooth transaction!) Its a nice clean van that just needed a good buffing and waxing. Everything on board appears to work, including the Behr in-dash a/c! (Huge bonus!) The original plan was to share this one with good family friends. Ben drove it from Oregon back to Ontario back in May. He stopped over at his in-laws in Vancouver and replaced the heads...would have been straight forward except one stud snapped while being torqued. (yes with a torque wrench) Engine back apart out of the van, many hours later the broken stud removed! No more issues, van cruised nicely the rest of the way home. I am very impressed how clean the van is for being all original. I might name it "White Elephant" since a rust free white Vanagon normally doesn't exist here in Southern Ontario! This one will receive a TDI swap when it is taken out of service for the winter. The second is an 82 Westy Aircooled. I am not a fan of the aircooled vans, but this one was priced right and fit the bill... I had never cancelled my Kijiji alert for "Westfalia" and this one came to my inbox. It was about 4 hrs from my house, but I just happened to be visiting up at the cottage 15 minutes away from it. The family selling it was leaving for a 3 year posting in Germany and had 2 weeks to sell it. We started thinking how nice it would be to travel with a 2nd van with both families. Drove it home yesterday! It felt a bit underpowered but realized when I got home the throttle was out of adjustment. Fixed that. It just needs a heater box and the push tube seals replaced on one side before our trip. I've never owned or worked on an aircooled Westy - can you pull the head with the motor still in the van? I've done it many times on the waterboxers. it's not as nice as the 83 we got from Scott, but its decent. A good buff and wax will have it looking ok. Anyone have a good used driver side heat exchanger? Here's a picture of the 2 vans: http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6126/5924097239_5cf2e474f8_z.jpg I've always had passenger vans, but these are my first Westies! We hope to get some good use and put some miles on them this summer. If anyone on the east coast (Nova Scotia) wants to meet up we'll be that way the first 2 weeks of August. Now we just have to argue over who gets to travel with a/c! Happy travels, Jason Ewing 82 & 83 Westies |
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