I found a 89 Westy in my same town. I took it for a test drive last night. The van is in really good condition. Everything works, it runs well, I let it idle for a while in the driveway, no change in engine temperature. The heads were done by a local shop not too long ago....it has 130K. It is a manual. Clean body, clean inside.

Now for the kicker. The asking price is about 13K. I get the feeling that the price of these vans is very arbitrary, (just my feeling). Kelly blue book puts the value at about 14K, NADA and Edmuson at about 8K. What is up? Part of me tells me to buy the best van I can afford because they are no longer around, duh, and chances are I'll be keeping it a while. I just didn't want to spend so much on my first van especially when, with the mileage, things can still go wrong (clutch, suspension, etc.)

Also, there is a small bubbling of paint behind and below the gas cap on the right hand side in the seam. I'm sure others have seen this bubbling. The question is how much metal needs to be removed (if any) to stop the rusting. My experience with older cars and rust is that the rust usually is worse than it looks. Any advice would be helpful.

Thanks in advance for the help, and thanks to all of the people who responded to my last post. 

Phil Walker
-hoping to have a Westy soon- 

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