Date:         Sat, 17 Sep 94 13:34:33 -0600
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         wself@viking.emcmt.edu (Will Self)
Subject:      trip report

Sorry this is sorta long.

I set out in my "converted" '84 Vanagon to attend my son's wedding in Maryland,
with stops in Kansas and Arkansas to visit relatives.

The "conversion" amounts to a bed that takes up most of the back (Queen size!)
with oodles of storage under the bed.  BTW, I'm very happy with it, even
though it was an inordinate amount of work.

In Kentucky my throwout bearing started to sing its swan song.  Believe it
or not, I drove all the way to Washington DC and in fact across the
Chesapeake bay and then all the way back to Kansas with that situation, the
bearing getting noisier all the time.  I sure did learn to drive with
minimal clutch usage, though I didn't learn to shift without using the clutch.
When the noise started to get "crunchy" I decided something better be done.
I was fortunate to find a guy in Columbus, Kansas who put in a *new* clutch,
throwout bearing, pressure plate, and pilot bearing for $325.

Then around Kaycee, Wyoming, only a couple of hundred miles from home, I
got a noise like losing a wheel bearing.  A mechanic in Buffalo, WY, found
a replacement axle assembly and put that in for a total cost of $325.  I
still don't know whether a bearing went out and caused a CV joint also to
fail or the other way around, or what, but all in all it could have been
a lot worse.  I have the old axle and one of these days may try to do a
post-mortem.

I've been getting some of those symptoms of head gasket leaking compression
into the coolant, but have yet to do anything about it.

But that's not what I wanted to talk about.  I had had trouble before I left
with the gauges not working--the gasoline gauge and the heat gauge.  A local
mechanic had "fixed" them, but I was unaware of just what he did.  Well,
what he had done was to solder a little wire onto the somewhat tattered
plastic printed circuit behind the gauges, and that wire came loose after
about 1500 miles.

So there I was in Kansas without gauges, and I really wanted the heat
gauge especially.  I ended up ordering a new printed circuit from a dealer
($99, and with overnight shipping and tax it came to $122), which I installed,
only to find that it didn't correct the trouble.  That was in Joplin.  I
proceeded on toward Springfield, and stopped at a rest area and got out
the assembly and the Bently and my voltmeter and came to the conclusion that
the little voltage regulator was bad.  It's supposed to take in the battery
voltage and put out exactly 10 volts.  So in Springfield I started calling
junkyards, and finally found one with a Vanagon.  Getting there, finding my
way, getting stopped by a train, hot, I nearly gave up on it entirely, but
kept pushing because I wanted that heat gauge. 

I finally found the junk yard and got the guy to take me
out to the Vanagon and remove the gauge assembly and I showed him the part
that I needed, and guess what.  He wouldn't sell it to me!  The idiot felt
that it must be part of an assembly and he would endanger his chances of 
making a fortune off the assembly if he sold me the part.

I was at the end of my rope.  Here was this guy refusing to sell me this
part I really needed, and chuckling at his great discovery that the master
cylinder is located behind the steering wheel (as if I was supposed to
chuckle along with him, you know).  Friends, I suppose it's a good thing
that murder is not just a misdemeanor, because if it were I would have been
paying the fine or whatever.  And in fact I hardly ever get mad.

That junk yard is called, H&J or H&G, something like that, on West
Commercial, so if anybody ever gets to Springfield Mo, stop by there and
do something horrible, please.

So I made a great part of the trip without a heat gauge.  I don't recommend
it for your nerves.  I eventually found a junk yard that sold me the part,
and by the way it was what I needed.

Will Self
Billings, Montana