Date: Mon, 16 Mar 1998 19:51:25 -0800
Reply-To: Malcolm Holser <mholser@ADOBE.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <Vanagon@vanagon.com>
From: Malcolm Holser <mholser@ADOBE.COM>
Subject: Trip report -- Death Valley
Well, we packed our '80 Westy up and headed south to see all the flowers
in Death Valley. Didn't get far -- about 100 yards (not even out of the
driveway!). Van stalled, and would not start again. We fired up the
LandCruiser and pulled the bus home. I fiddled a while, gave up, and moved
some of the stuff into the '86 GL. We got out a few hours late.
We drove south through the *lovely* central valley of California (some of the
ugliest places in the nation, IMO). We did a motel in Mojave, and then went
up to Death Valley. The flowers are quite something -- almost unbelievable
that there could be so much growing. We camped out two nights in Furnace
Creek, and then drove home.
My son and I walked from Furnace Creek to Badwater, 20 miles across some of
the worst terrain I've ever experienced. Some was covered with flowers --
and sharp rocks. Some was salt. Some was mud. Strange place, and eerily
beautiful. We left by the park's east side.
For VW bus sitings, we started out well, with a bullet-turn-signal singlecab
tooling along north on highway 99 near Fresno. We saw about 8 buses, and
about the same number of Vanagons. We parked near a '91 Westy in DV. There
was also an '86 Country Homes conversion there as well. As we pulled into the
campground, there was a Rialta pulling in as well. We saw two EV/Winnies as
well. The singlecab was the only splitty we saw )^:
The Westie failing us was something of a blow -- it fails often, but it
has always just taken a bit of tinkering to get going again. We took a
trip at Christmas across the southwest, and had the clutch slave cylinder
fail in -18'F temps in Durango. I replaced the cylinder with a spare, but
it proved to be leaky as well. I finally put in a different cylinder (two
types were used on 1980 Vanagons) and it is working fine. The van had been
running great -- I could not believe that it would fail this way. It appears
to be flooding when I attempt to start it -- the only engine work I had done
was to fix the leaky dipstick. It is really frustrating. Tomorrow I'll
start checking the injectors -- perhaps I've a leaky one.
But this is definately the year and time to see Death Valley (and perhaps
the poppies at Antelope Valley near Lancaster...we did not have time)
Malcolm