Today I drove my '87 Westfailure for the first time in about six months.
This is the culmination of my ongoing replacement of every cooling
system component there is (about $700 worth of parts), as well as all
the brake parts (drums/rotors/calipers/cylinders/hoses and all the
mechanical bits).

Lacking decent champagne, I broke a Guinness Stout over the nose as a
send-off.

I am happy to report that I put about 50 miles on the van in reasonably
warm weather without incident. I drove both on the freeway and in
traffic, up hills and under load. Fully warmed up, the needle stayed put
about 1/2 way between the LED and the upper mark. I am currently running
almost straight water as I wanted to make sure I had no leaks, and I
still need to replace the long lengths of heater hose. I attribute the
needle's position to the fact that the water has a lower boiling point
than would a 50-50 mix of coolant, so I'm measuring a slightly elevated
temperature. But the important thing is that my water level stayed
constant in the expansion tank (I checked it at repeated stops out of
paranoia).

The radiator fan cycled on and off like clockwork. I didn't see any
signs of boiling water in the expansion even at the hottest portion of
my drive, so I'm ***hoping*** that my cooling system is now OK, with no
indication of a headgasket failure, as I was suspecting awhile back. And
I'm continuing on with using the existing plastic cooling pipes under
the van, the ends of which show the characteristic damage. I simply used
two clamps for each hose and am hoping for the best.

I am also happy to report that my brakes work great, and I no longer
have the vibrating steering wheel and pulsating brake pedal that I had
when I purchase the van last year. The old parts were QUITE worn down!

I have only to replace my heater hoses, replace all four CV boots
(they're all torn open!) and get some decent tires to be fully
road-worthy. The short list for 205/70R14 tires is down to Kumho 852s or
Yokohama Y356s. I have ordered a set of the 2WD springs from Steve
Schwenk, so in a couple of months, the van should drive as well as it
seems to run!

Comments via p-mail are of course welcome. Particularly moral support
that I have no further cooling system "issues".

Dan