You can check out my van getting pulled from the yard at www.daneggert.com 
The gas tank did get munched!  but it still works for now until I put a new one in.  I lost about a 1/4 of the tank so I have to watch the gas gauge all the time.  My sliding door got trashed in the moving process too, big dents from where the fork lift slammed into it, but I found another one for cheap that has no rust on it whatsoever.  I paid very little for the van, had to put a new motor and clutch disk into it, and now I am dealing with minor bugs here and there like you would with any other vanagon.  Total cost is under $1000 for me and once I get the new paint on her, I'm sure she will be worth much more than that, but it doesn't matter since I am going to keep it for a long time!

eggz
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: JordanVw@AOL.COM 
  To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM 
  Sent: Monday, June 04, 2001 9:12 AM
  Subject: Re: Clean Westy at junkyard, sad, happy day, long

  In a message dated 6/4/01 9:41:10 AM Eastern Daylight Time, 
  drillock@EARTHLINK.NET writes: 

    Due to State and Local regulations, the fluids are drained, batteries 
    and other hazardous materials removed, gas tanks ripped out, etc. Then a 
    giant front end loader (fork lift) is used to gently, ha ha, cart the 
    victim several hundred yards to it's spot in a row. There it is placed 
    on 3 or more welded stacks of old steel wheels with no regard for any 
    consequential damage to brake lines, hoses, wires, body, bumpers, etc. 

    Get the picture? 

  i agree.   once a car hits the salvage auction circuit, its on its way to 
  being trashed..even at the salvage auctions, the expensive stuff (radios, 
  center caps, alloy wheels are swapped out for steel ones, spoilers dissapear, 
  etc) grows legs and walks away, being picked over by salvage auction 
  buyers..the van is picked up by a forklift (usually ALWAYS, even if it does 
  run) and the gas tank/LP tank is always crushed (you pick up a vanagon with a 
  forklift, you WILL crush the gas tank, its inevitable) and most yards will 
  toast the fiberglass bumpers (if not already) by the time it makes it back to 
  it's spot in the yard. gotta push it back into it's spot in the row?  no 
  problem, that's what forklift tines are for..  ram it right back in there.   
  most cars actually get more damage on their way from the final owner to their 
  final resting place in the junkyard than they even had before the car was 
  junked.. 

  my best mental image was quite some years ago when i happened to be at a yard 
  and witnessed the fork lift driver picking up a '62 23 window microbus by 
  jabbing the fork tines thru the skylights in the roof....    that makes ya 
  sick.. 
  chris 

[text/html]