Date:         Wed, 12 Feb 2014 09:22:18 -0500
Reply-To:     "kenneth wilford (Van-Again)" <kenwilfy@COMCAST.NET>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         "kenneth wilford (Van-Again)" <kenwilfy@COMCAST.NET>
Subject:      Another Trip to Belize
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

Just wanted to share our latest trip to Belize with you folks.  Any some of
you might remember from previous years, about four years ago a customer
called me out of the blue to see if I would be interested in flying down to
Belize to get his 87 Wolfsburg Edition Vanagon back on the road.
I was, we did, and now four years later we are still taking a yearly
pilgrimage down to Placencia Belize to work on his van, and relax in the
warmness for a couple of weeks.

This year my goal was to get cooling system of the van in good order.  A
hose had blown the previous year and I had done a quick fix to get the van
back on the road that worked, however I wanted it to be as reliable as
possible so a complete coolant hose replacement was in order.  I
accomplished this and also replaced the large metal pipe that goes to the
water pump with a stainless one.  Belize is very humid, and the place where
this van lives has salt water on either side (carribean on one side and
salt water lagoon on the other).  When I first came down I found that the
house tool kit was rusted in the box and all of the ratchets were frozen.
 I freed them up with oil and thought that the owner had just doused them
with salt water on his boat.  The next year, I came back down, no one had
touched the tool set, and yet the ratchets were frozen again!  The salt and
humidity in the air was doing this!  So this coolant pipe, that is known to
rust, I just didn't want to have to deal with again.  Stainless steel pipe
from Germany should guarantee this.

Once the coolant system was dealt with, we took some drives around the
local area.  I had had another problem in the past where hitting a big bump
would make the van stall.  It was intermittent so I could never figure out
exactly what was causing it.  I decided to replace the distributor, and a
brought along a new ignition switch if that was the culprit.  It wound up
being one of the two black wires that goes to the coil.  One had had an end
terminal replaced, and the new one wasn't crimped right.  One good tug and
it came apart.

Everything was great after that until the second to last day.  Went to go
for a drive and the brakes were low.  Saw a small puddle of brake fluid by
the driver's side rear wheel in the driveway so I pulled it back inside and
ripped everything apart.  The rear wheel cylinder was bad and had been
leaking for a while.  It took a lot of cleaning to get most of the brake
dust/fluid mixture off of things.  When I went to replace the rear wheel
cylinder someone had done a number on the fitting and it was rounded off
and also frozen to the line.  I took all of the brake components off of the
backing plate and held the fitting with a pair of vice grips while I turned
the whole wheel cylinder and unscrewed it off of the line that way.  Then I
screwed the new one on (brought one with me), and put everything back
together, and it was repaired.  On the list for next year, some new brake
lines and brake components!

If you have never hear of Belize before, it is formerly British Hondoras,
and is located below Chetumal Mexico on the eastern coast of Central
America.  I like it because it is sparsely populated, has some nice beaches
and resorts, great fishing, and also speaks English and uses 110v
electricity.  Their dollar is linked to ours so that one US dollar equals
two Belize dollars to the money exchange is simple and most places will
take US dollars and give you change in Belize dollars.  They have the
second largest barrier reef in the world (Australia is the biggest) and
also the famous Blue Hole for diving.  Mayan ruins abound along with howler
monkey, butterflies, humming birds, etc.

We had a great time exploring the area, fishing, and relaxing (in between
servicing the van).  If you want to learn more about Belize I would check
out the Belize forums here:

http://www.belizeforum.com/belize/

If you want to see the resort where we stay and where the van is located,
you can check out their website here:

http://theplacencia.com/

If you are interested in visiting the area, please feel free to pmail me
off list.  I have been going down there for four years now so I guess I
have a little advice that I could share if someone is thinking about it.

Happy trails!

--
Thanks,
Ken Wilford
John 3:16
www.vanagain.com