Date:         Mon, 14 Jul 1997 17:41:42 -0400
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         "Linda Bartnik" <lbart@preferred.com>
Subject:      junkyard adventure

Hey all,
Today I headed out to a local junkyard that has a lot of VWs.  My dad told
me about it so I thought I'd go check it out, maybe I would find the
elusive odometer drive gear for my '81.

Anyway, the place is called Norris Auto Salvage and is in Elizabethton, TN.
 If any of you are in the area, you should seek it out as he has LOADS of
VWs.

Rows and rows of Beetles, plenty of bay-window Buses, quite a few Type 3's,
even a couple 411s.  I didn't see any Things, and only one Karmann Ghia. 
There were also a few Vanagons, so I started my hunt.  All the Vanagons I
found were pre-'86 water-cooled models except for one late model Vanagon. 
It was gold and had the brown dash and brown interior trim that my '81 has.
 It also had a map pocket in good shape.  Since mine is cracking/falling
off, I got the map pocket off that one.  I wanted to grab the plastic
instrument cluster (not the instruments, just the plastic instrument holder
that screws to the dash) but he wouldn't sell just that, instead he said he
would only sell it as a unit w/ all the instruments in it for more money
than I wanted to spend.  That was disappointing.  However, I pulled the
speedometer and checked the odometer drive gear.  It was uncracked but
unfortunately was not the right one as it had a lot more teeth than mine.  

I found another Vanagon that had been hit hard in the driver's door area. 
I found the instrument cluster in the MG Midget next to it.  It was the old
style, so I took the speedometer out but again found that the gear was on
the other side of the housing and had more teeth.  What I can assume from
this lesson is that the later speedometers, the ones with the plastic
push-on cable rather than the metal screw-on cable, have odometer drive
gears that are not usable with the early model speedometers.  All the
Vanagons I found had the push-on cable and all were water-cooled.  Even
though the early water-cooled Vanagon speedometers have the same face as
the air-cooled Vanagon speedometers, the innards are different.  However,
I'm willing to bet that the late loaf speedometer has the same drive gear
as the early air-cooled Vanagon speedometer.  There were a few loaves, but
I didn't want to pull the speedometers out of those as they are not as easy
to get to as the Vanagon speedometers.  

I considered just getting one of the early water-cooled speedometers and
adapting it to my '81 but then realized that the cable attaches
differently, so I would have to get the water-cooled Vanagon cable too.  I
didn't want to crawl around under any of these vans :-)

So I'm still stuck with an intermittantly working odometer.  Hopefully I'll
find a solution soon.

Sean