Date:         Mon, 13 Nov 95 14:42:46 EST
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         jag@cs.rochester.edu
Subject:      Re: WWW page address?

> 
> >...
> >Two years ago we went to Biscayne and Everglades national
> >parks (see pictures on my WWW-pages).
> > ...
> 
> 
> What's the address to the WWW page?
> 
> 
> Thanks, 
> 
> Jack  '73 Westfalia (orange)
> Costa Mesa, CA
> 
> 

Sorry, forgot the direct pointer and evidently also the .sig.
The southern Florida backcountry pictures are on:

	http://www.cs.rochester.edu/u/jag/adventures/adventures.html

Or navigate from my home page (in .sig) if you want to see other stuff 
as well.

As I mentioned in the previous posting, my partner and I are going 
for a two month journey again starting this Wednesday. This weekend
I wired the Westy for the amercan style shared brake and blinker light,
and did some towing experiments. 

I had been a bit concerned how the Westy diesel (already rated "slowest" 
here on the list ;-) would behave after adding 700 lbs of trailer
and a Hobie 18 behind. To my great relief (I'm facing a tow of several 
thousand miles with this setup) it didn't do too bad. On flat ground
cruising at 55 to 60 still seems comfortable, and I can do it without 
driving the engine flat out. Of course acceleration goes down from 
nonexistant to <missing appropriate English adjective>.

I had the injectors tested on Friday (the slight smoke problem I mentioned
before). Surprisingly they tested fine. They have a good 1000h on them
(45000 miles), and thats when injectors, even in industrial diesels
are usually due for a rebuild. Mine however still were within 10% of
specifications in terms of opening pressure, no dripping, and only
a slight uneveness in the spray pattern (Still sprays in the full cone,
but you can see slight streaks in the pattern so it is not a perfectly
distributed cone. The Bosch injector shop and I agreed on trying some
injector cleaner (Standadyne "blue" bottle) first, before replacing
the nozzles.

I would have liked to test compression also, but getting a hold of
somebody with a diesel (>650 psi) compression tester in Rochester is 
impossible. Compression should be fine though. The engine only has
about 1000h on it since rebuild, and with perfect maintenance it
should do much more than that before needing another. (up to 10 000h
in industrial application is claimed by VW. OK I agree that the in the car
situation is a whole lot different)

Now, driving a brick with a tow can be challenging as I experienced
already in the first test drive. The total length of bus and trailer is
about 40 feet. I have to watch the turns. Too tight ones produce dents
in the sides of the bus from the catamaran hulls. My partners  Plymouth
already have nice symmetric dents on both sides :-(.
Parallel parking using two and one half car sized slots was a frustrating
10 min experience. I need to brush up my trailer towing proficiency
again. Other drivers may add to the complication by parking in a way
that there is absolutely no way I can turn tight enough to get my
40 feet combination out of the typical shopping mall parking lot.
One rude solution is to place myself diagonal over several spaces, so
the turn into the driving lane is less than 90 degrees.

Also, of course already during the short expressway test drive yesteday
Mr sexually frustrated male comes up behind. So as you know just seeing
a vw bus in front of them makes these guys go nuts. Now, the combination
of diesel bus, tow, a good headwind and a very slight grade made us go
a whole whopping 5 mph slower than the speed limit (55). I'm dutifully
in the rightmost lane. There are three sparsely trafficated lanes 
to the left of me. What does Mr sexually frustrated do? Well, instead
of waiting a few milliseconds and pass on the left, he goes onto an 
expressway on-ramp on the right and comes up sideways with the trailer.
Now, he must have misjudged the length of the tow, or the acceleration 
capability of his generic Detroit iron, because the on ramp ends before
he is even halfway past the trailer. So what does he do next? Drop back behind
again and pass safely on the right instead? NOOOO, he continues on the narrow
shoulder, and when the shoulder disappear a few hundred yards later
he just yanks over into my lane. This behaviour was a lot worse than
what I had expected, and I was surprised by the stupidity of it. 
When he without warning pulled into my lane, I had to turn hard over to
the right to avoid the collision. Not the kind of manuever you'd want to do
with a trailer behind.

/Martin
--
Martin Jagersand                 email: jag@cs.rochester.edu
Computer Science Department             jag@cs.chalmers.se
University of Rochester          Fax:   (716) 461-2018
Rochester, NY 14627-0226         WWW: http://www.cs.rochester.edu/u/jag/