Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1998 12:05:00 -0700
Reply-To: Nathaniel Merrill <nmerrill@PARAMETRIX.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <Vanagon@vanagon.com>
From: Nathaniel Merrill <nmerrill@PARAMETRIX.COM>
Subject: Fun's over (ie.Trip report) Longish
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Hello y'all,
Im happy to be back on the list again after my extended Vacation. Just thought I would pass along a trip report for the list.
My Girl friend, Syncro Westy and I spent all of August and September cruising the western half of our great country including Co. Az. Wy. Id. Ut. Ca. Or. Wa. Nv. NM. We racked up 9K+ miles (110K - 119K) during that time! I have not done the total average but it must be right at 20 mpg. At trip start we stopped at a weigh station and found our baby needed a diet! 5300+ pounds (I don't have the exact # on hand) That's with camping (backpacking), Climbing, Mountain biking (with two bikes on the Paulchen), fishing, and general living gear for two heavy packers including full watertank and a bunch of food. For those who care; with us in the front seats she was approx. 200lbs heavier in the rear with a half tank o gas. Not bad considering how much s--t was stuffed in the back of that bus! So with one more passenger (the friend we picked up at one point with his Full Backpack) This van was at or exceeding Gross vehicle wt.
We did a fair amount of pretty gnarly off roading into camping sites and the van never failed to amaze me with its capabilities (ground clearance, climbing ability). We encountered two vehicle related problems: Low speed fan stopped working so she started getting warm enough for the high speed fan to kick in. In Flagstaff Az. I called Burk's Autohaus who immediately told me what was wrong and how to test the diagnosis. He was correct and had the part required which was installed immediately. I needed a large resistor which was mounted behind the front grill to the left of the right headlight. Burkhard is a German Master Mechanic and we talked vanagons for over a hour. This guy knew his Volkswagen (and Vanagons to boot), He turned me on to an article in European Car mag about the Eurospec engine swap with a GTI for the Vanagon...one for the shop recommendation list for sure! Second problem was a bad drivers side rear wheel bearing which progressively became louder over the last 1000 miles of the trip. We made it home and had a local do the work. One other problem actually. The small circulator fan I installed in the fridge died after 1 month of continuous duty. It was one of the Radio Shack Match box size CPU fans. Refrigerator performance suffered after that (ice build up on the fins). Otherwise the Westy was a perfect performer. She ran like a champ despite 11,000 foot altitudes, 100+ degree temps, and me doing 75 for hours. I could go on for a while but I will spare you all the little details...unless someone wants some on anything in particular like oilchanges and idiots, fridge temps, bed comfort and egg crate foam, sun showers and shower curtains, camping friendly (cheap or free) areas and expensive places, mountain biking hot spots -let me know.
Nat
Seattle
91 silver syncro westy (Sage?)
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