Date:         Mon, 24 Mar 1997 20:40:47 -0800 (PST)
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         Earl Smith <earlsmit@islandnet.com>
Subject:      New brain needed!

Well it's now official.  Took ole Westy in to the doctor this morning for a
brain scan and he confirmed a malignant tumer.  So, need a new brain for an
'84 digijet.  The one that is in there is a Bosch.  I wrote the numbers in
my book but am too lazy to trudge through the cold and dark to get it from
the basement right now.  

I am reliably informed that last year VW came out with a new ECU because the
current crop are a disaster.  I inferred that this will work on my '84.  The
only snag is the cost - $C700.  That's about $US526.  Do any of you folks
have an words of wisdom on making this changeover?

Noticed some traffic about rust on the hookup side of the body.  I recently
gutted the body so I could do some repairs to a wheel well.  Some twit had
welded in a new quarter panel and left a wide gap between the old body metal
and the new piece.  Inside behind the wall panels was full of dirt with a
layer of mud 1" deep in the channel!  Cleaned it all out and replaced the
insulation.  That's when I discovered the rear heater was leaking but won't
dwell on that.
It's another long story.

Anyhow, it so happened that before I had all the cabinets and panels back
in, I left Westy out in the rain.  (Actually, that's a redundancy.  "out"
and "in the rain" are the same thing here in winter.)  When I started to
replace the panels, discovered the stiffening channels were full of water
and it was obviously coming in around the hookup fittings.  Pulled them all
out, put a bead of silicon around the edges, and screwed them back in.
Tested them today and no more leaks.