Date:         Mon, 20 Oct 1997 09:28:00 EDT
Reply-To:     Eric Henning <henning@FP.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon mailing list <Vanagon@Gerry.SDSC.EDU>
From:         Eric Henning <henning@FP.COM>
Subject:      newbie ? and tach install described
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; X-MAPIextension=".TXT"

Hello all,

First a couple of newbie questions:

After warming up my 1980 Westy for a few minutes, i head out to work and
find the vanagon kinda lurches and drags.  I have heard of the vanagon
lurky jerky, is this it?  after several minutes of driving all is smooth.
only does it when engine car has been sitting overnite.  does it regardless
of outside air temp.  Perhaps sediment in tank?


Added a tachometer (more on that later).  Van seems to idle around
1000 rpm and quickly goes up to 4000 while friving.  saw earlier
posts on rpm's but believe that was for later vans.  What is redline for
the 2l air cooled engine?

Tachometer - couldn't locate any Vanagon's with built in tachs.
I've only seen one Vanagon in a salvage yard around NE Philly so waiting for
one may have taken too long.  so... i took an instrument cluster from
a VW Rabbit that has a tach.  stripped out the tach gauge.  quite easy
actually.  stripped out the clock in my van.  used the clock mounting
plastic with the tach guts. only had to drill one hole in the
clock backing plastic to accomodate the "-" connection for the tach.
Replaced the clock faceplate with the tach faceplate.  had to round the
corners and cut the bottom of the tach faceplate off so i could use the
original gas gauge.  This was done so the flexible circuit board
connections on the stock gas guage van instrument panel could be used.

The rabbit tach faceplate has  gas and temp guage window.  Cut the
faceplate straight across snipping off the windows so now what was the top
of these two gauge windows was now the bottom of the tach faceplate.
Painted over the temp symbol with black paint.  Gas gauge mounts to
 original spot on clock backing plastic.  Gas gauge fills
bottom part of tach area now.

Was able to mount the tach faceplate to the tach electronics
by drilling two small
holes in the tach faceplate that correspond to two unused mounting
holes in the tach "guts". Mounted the tach faceplate to the
clock backing plastic by drilling two small holes in the tach faceplate
corresponding with the old clock faceplate mounting posts on the clock
backing plastic.

Hooked up "+", "-" and signal leads to tach electronics.  Popped tach into
instrument cluster, put back flexible circuit board (insulating any potential
shorting problems due to modifications.  Put instrument cluster back
in van.  ran "+" wire to fuse box, "-" wire to ground, and signal
wire to ignition coil.  I now have a pretty stock looking tach that only
cost a few dollars and a couple hours of playing.

Any detailed questions please email me.