My vanagon 1990 GL is the first car I ever puchased new (after I saw Lech
Walesa driving one on the TV news,  I know it's a stupid reason, but how
many idiots bought new Camaros because they saw Burt Reynolds drving one in
Smokey and the Bandit?). It has 190K miles on the original tranny and
engine.  The heads leaked coolent about 90K ago, and now they're starting
to do it again.

My throttle linkage broke today.  I had to put her back in her parking
space by rigging a hand throttle with a piece of fishing line.  I removed a
broken piece of steel from under the gas petal (not a cable) from inside
the van. I haven't looked under the car because there are two feet of snow
on the ground (she lives outside).  Does anybody know what this piece is
called, or where I can buy another one?  Don't tell me to go look in my
dealer's parts catalog because I'm foot powered now.  I normally walk to a
train station less than a half a mile away to get to work, and there's a
grocery store about a half a mile away, but I can't do any ROAD TRIPS (the
van has been to California once, Maine four times and Florida eight times,
and alot of places in between).