Date:         Tue, 21 Sep 1999 20:32:56 -0700
Reply-To:     Alistair Bell <albell@UVIC.CA>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Alistair Bell <albell@UVIC.CA>
Subject:      Euro vs US tailights
Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"

This afternoon I went to one of our local VW wreckers looking for bumper end
caps (ha!) and I found an interesting old 79/80 vanagon.

I recognised it as one I had seen regularly at the university, orange and
biege, with a heater vent on the drivers side and an Electrolux fridge vent
on the door pillar on the passenger side. Its a window van but with the
"bulkhead" behind the front seats (split, regular drivers, double passenger)
and quite a crude camper conversion. A sink and two burner stove was built
into the left side and the fridge was in a unit on the right side (like in
the early '70's westfalias). It also had the skinny steering wheel, and the
spot for the fog lamp switch was used, but the switch gone.

The tail lights were in fairly good condition, I removed one and popped the
bulbholder out. It had the european set up with the "fog tail light" bulb
in place. The bulb holder itself had the word "EUROPA" stamped on it.

I bought both tailights (and one bumper cap!). At home I was able to compare
the tailights to my USA spec versions. (Both had the same part numbers0

The first difference was the absence of a parking light on the Euro one.
That's the little single (10W?) lamp at the outboard end of the lights. The
hole was there of course, but it wasn't "wired" for a bulb - just like the
empty bulb socket for the "fog tail light" on  the US version.

The second difference was the absence (on the Euro version) of reflectors in
the lens assembly for both the brake light and the turn signal.

The third difference was a slightly different fresnel pattern on some of the
lenses.

I installed one of each on the van and compared.

The US spec units had a much, much brighter brake light and turn signal, due
to the built in reflector.


Earthshaking info, eh?


Alistair