Date:         Thu, 20 Jul 1995 11:28:34 -0700
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         wabbott@townshend.Corp.Megatest.COM (William Abbott)
Subject:      $3K synchro,  temps, free type 2 fan shroud, cheap rabbit, paint, model Vanagons

6 sub-topics covered below:

1) 	Robin Davies found an 87 synchro for $3K! Geez, if it works
thats a good deal!!! If not, well, synchro parts are breathtakingly
expensive... Inspect it thoroughly for oil leaks and broken-looking
stuff, and drive it in all gears, on level, up and down hills,
and around a couple of tight corners. Listen for funny noises, feel for
funny stuff coming from the steering, etc.

	Going up hill from a dead stop will put the maximum stress
on the engine, transmission and 4WD system- you've got 8 CV joints
under there, more than one differential, etc. Clunks and judders
are bad.

	This could be the buy of the year, or a money-sink, so be
careful (Ha! I wish I were there to make an offer if you don't!)


2) 	Thanks to everyone who is posting their head and oil temp info- I'm
going to put in a gauge myself and its nice to know what to expect,
where the problems are, etc.


3) 	Robb, all,
	I got a turn-key rebuilt from ECI, but the fan shroud didn't
have an air nipple to ventilate the charcoal canister, so I got
a wrecking yard shroud to replace the new, made in Taiwan, shroud.
	So I've still got this new, made in Taiwan, shroud and its
free to the first person who comes by to pick it up. New, German,
shrouds are about $250 from RMMW. I don't know the Bus Boys price
because I haven't got a Bus Boys catalog (hint, hint, Jim). This fits
a type II with dog-house cooler, which I belive means a wider fan
and perhaps requires the rest of the dog-house tin to work right.
	


4)	On the subject of cheap stuff, A shy friend of a friend has a 
Rabbit which shows 8x,xxx on the odometer, and they think has never turned 
over, for $400 (If I didn't already have a project, this might be
an art car!) Let me know if you or someone you know is interested
and I'll see how we can get buyer and seller together


5)	I've got the Great Rust Experiment set up- I painted the front
(FIF) tin that the accelerator cable and fuel pipe stick through white,
after treating one end with Rustoleum's acid rust remover (down to
bright metal too!) and the other end with Plastikote's Rust Converter.
The center was simply wirebrushed. Everything was primed with Rustoleum
Rusty Metal Primer (probably overkill) and then painted Rustoleum gloss white.
After 25 years, there was nice surface rust on both sides of both ends, so
I believe it could happen again. We'll see which side goes first!

	The Rustoleum acid is not pink like Naval Jelly but does about the same
work in possibly less time. Its a thick, slightly yellow, liquid, and I
wore vinyl gloves while working with it and used a tooth brush to apply it.
After the rust had disappeared, I rinsed with LOTS of cold water, allowing
the runoff to soak into the dirt between my fruit trees.
	Then I hot-water rinsed in the kitchen sink, towel-dried and
baked in the oven at 250F for a few minutes so I could paint it the same day.
(Yes I did let it cool before painting)

	I liked the results of the acid so much that I did the rest
of the loose tin with it. I prefer starting with clean metal. The
rust-converter stuff goes on white, turns blue and then dries 
translucent. I'm afraid I 'scrubbed' a little while applying it and
the resulting bubbles dried as little mounds of craters. The result
was an un-even surface. The rust-converter instructions say to avoid
coating existing paint, which is a real problem- I ended up just covering
it and I suspect that this will prove a weak spot. I didn't sand it,
which might have fixed the former bubbles.

	If you can flow enough rinse water, I think the acid is a better 
deal- cheaper (You get a pint or so for $7 versus 3 oz or so for $5) and
you get a common and well understood thing to paint- shiny metal. But if
you can't flow water for one reason or another, the converter seems like
a good adjunct to wirebrushing. For example, the rust around my left
front window scraper is going to get converter'ed, because I don't
want to deal with acid getting inside the seal and into the door!


6)	In the hope that it was a crew cab, like Joel said it was, :^)
I ordered both VW Vanagons kits from Mountain State Hobbies- the UN
version and the fire truck. As Joel already discovered, the firetruck
is NOT a pickup, just a normal bus. But a close look at the instructions seems
to show the middle and back seats face each other with a table in between-
somewhat Westfalia-like. I'll check tonight to see if the UN version
is the same or has conventional seating. Its a pretty nice kit- 30 years
better than the splitwindow kit, which sorta helps with it being 2 1/2 times
more expensive.