1984 WESTY CUSTOM BUILT IN GERMANY IN FEB OF 84. HAS A PORSCHE =
MOTOR. MINT
CONDITION, REAR AIR, STOVE, FRIDGE, SINK, FOUR SPEED.A REAL GEM
Many of you responded with advice, for which I am grateful.
Out of the many comments that were posted the one that hit the nail =
on
the head was by Joel Walker who wrote:
"we used to run into this back in the old aircooled =
days:
Porsche did,
indeed, DESIGN the engine for the 1972 to 1983 buses =
(and the
Porsche
914 4-cylinder, and the Porsche 912E of 1976, and the
Volkswagen
411/412 series of cars from 1969 to 1974), but it wasn't a =
'porsche'
engine ... it was MADE by VW. anyway, a lot of bus-sellers =
were
told
by some slipshod mechanic "yeah, that's one of them buses with
the
Porch engines in it". riiiiiight. :)
chances are, that's =
what's
happened here. someone has told the current
owner than he has 'one of =
them
Porsch engines in it'. :)"
Unfortunatly, that was the case
here.
The Westy I looked at did indeed have a very stock Waterboxer =
engine.
Oh Well.
On the bright side, the Van itself had a very solid, rust =
free body
with near
mint condition interior. It could use a paint job as the origianal =
white
paint
has pretty well had it. The odometer reads 140,000 =
miles.
There were many things to like about this vehicle
and I am tempted to make this my first Westy, but the one =
thing
that troubled me was that it was very hard starting.
It seemed to run fine once it was running but to get it going =
was
another matter.
I understand that that many things could cause this, not the least =
of that
the owner
would go back into the engine compartment and turn the distributer =
by hand
a little
this way and then that way between cranks until it was =
running.
As I know nothing about waterboxers other than what I have read =
here I'm
not
sure if this is something easily corrected, or a sign of a more =
serious
problem.
BTW - The owner is asking $3,500 (U.S.)
I'm thinking it may be worth this, or near to it
even if it does call for engine work. (comments?)
On the subject of engines, I've read through the archives
on engine transplants, and there seems to be many
different ways to go.
I'd like to ask for opinions on what engine swap is
best, taking into consideration price and results.
Any further comments/advise are greatly appreciated.
Thanks again to all who responded to my original Post.
Rod