van.htm
Presently my van is in very sad condition. My brother-in-law did a motor rebuild. Since then we can’t get it started. After much cranking it developes positive crankcase pressure and shoots crankcase oil onto the floor. The oil pressure light stays lit. It exhibits partial combustion and never fires up. I can’t bring it to a repair shop because who would want to work on a questionable rebuild? I know when I was an appliance repairman – I wouldn’t want to walk in on a repair job like this. So I’m waiting for my brother-in-law to finish the job. And I’m looking on ebay for another motor. It has been dead since June 2007.
Purchase: During the end of the 2005 winter I bought a beat-up, ugly, old 1982 VW Vanagon Westfalia pop-up camper. It is the slowest vehicle I have ever driven or even seen. It has serious personality. I bought it in New Hampshire for $3000. My brother-in-law hauled it home for me on a flatbed trailer. It came with no title, no keys, a fried headlight switch, bad ignition switch cylinder, a radio that played as long as you did not turn on the headlights, and the pop-up top had a mildew tear. It had a newly rebuilt engine, good suspension, acceptable brakes, and pretty new looking tires. It gets 28-34 miles per gallon; which is pretty impressive for a van. But it was, and still is, UGLY!
I bought this vehicle because I crushed my 1983 VW diesel Rabbit that winter. A teenager blew through a stop sign right in front of me while I was driving on Ridge Rd in Jefferson, NJ. That was the end of a terrific commuter car. I bought that car for $900 and poured a fair amount of money into it to turn it into a reliable commuter car. After a rebuilt fuel injector pump, new struts all around, new tires, a new stereo and a veggie-oil conversion; it was a gem. That car got 43 to 50 miles per gallon. My commute was down to $6 per week using old vegetable oil. I drive 100 miles a day to get back and forth from home to work. I really miss that car. Oh well. Since the veggie conversion worked, I figured that replacing the car with another diesel would be a good idea. Fuel mileage was less of a concern if I was going to convert it to run on free, used veggie oil. And two summers ago I rode my motorcycle out west and I swore that I would come up with some form of a camper to drag my family out west to see what I saw. So I bought this crazy camper.
As time has gone by I have done a fair amount of repairs to the van. { headlight switch, timing belt, temperature sensor, thermostat, glow plugs & relay, fuel injector pump, alternator and belts, faucet, new LP tank-regulator-valve, CD/MP3/Radio }. The non-stock exhaust system was very loud. So I installed a stock system. It’s still too loud, but it’s much less loud than before. I added a computer system to the van. Installed a map program so I won't get lost. Or at least I’ll be able to find out how to get unlost. I added a cheap fan to the dashboard so that in the summer I can at least have some air blown onto me while I'm sweating my teeth out while driving. I threw in a cheap floor speaker to get the sound system going, but I gotta put in some better speakers for the stereo system.
Presently, it has some major issues. It ate several fuel injection lines ( 2 #1 lines and 1 #2 line ). All of the vibration brackets and rubber pieces were installed in the right places. ( On the motor rebuild we found one snapped bolt to the engine block. ) The motor developed a surge at lower loads. I suspected that the fuel injection pump was the cause. The transmission started getting very loud and the slave cylinder for the clutch began to leak hydraulic fluid. Prior to this developing list of problems I purchased a complete motor and 4-speed transmission. It came complete with the fuel injection pump, linkage, shafts, motor mounts, and all the auxiliary stuff like the alternator, water pump. It came straight out of another vanagon diesel. My plan was to find a 1.9 liter turbo diesel motor and swap it with the extra motor/trans on the bench. Then take my time doing the engine swap on a workbench. Unfortunately, I tried swapping fuel injection pumps and set the timing wrong. I blew the motor in the van, June, 2007. It has been out of commission since then. The good news; I had an extra motor/trans. So my brother in-law rebuilt the motor. Found out why the old motor was eating fuel injection lines. The mount to the engine block had a bolt snapped off under the fuel injection pump. The silver lining of the story is that the transmission that I bought wasn’t a 4-speed, it’s a 5-speed! And it came with the different/necessary linkage too! Life is good! I had the fuel injection pump rebuilt and we installed it. Found out that the engine cranked way too slowly to start. I replaced the starter and ran much heavier cables to the starter. It turns over very quickly now. But the engine will still not start. I am waiting for the next day that my brother in-law has time to work on it.
I saved all the veggie conversion stuff from the crushed rabbit. I’ll eventually do the conversion on the van. That’s next year’s project.
With this new hiking hobby, I was hoping that I could use this van for some
slack-packing/section hiking. It’s
perfect for that role. It has sleeping
room for four, a sink, stove, and a pretty crude refrigerator. I have a portable toilet. I’m hoping that my father ( retired ) will
fulfill his offer to drive me to a trailhead, drop me off and then meet me 20
miles or so up the trail. Then sleep,
and do the same thing again. But with
this dead engine all of my plans to hike the rest of the A. T. in
At this pace of repairs, I am considering taking it off of insurance and leaving it on my brother-in-law’s property. That isn’t much different than the situation is right now.
