>so recently I became utterly enchanted with the volkswagon synchro.

Hello Jax,

That's how it always begins...another term would be "addiction".

>its an '87 with 208k miles on it.
>body is decent (little rust)
>seems to run okay,
>the guy is asking $2800 for it.

Make sure you drive this thing around listening and "feeling" for anything
strange from the transmission (hard to get in/out of a gear etc. Take a look
underneath and check for ANY leaks from the transmission. Syncro trannies are
not cheap to rebuild ($1500+ as a rough ballpark, with an emphasis on the "+
") (I guess no tranny is "cheap" for that matter) and with that amount of
miles on it, you may just be looking at such a scenario in the not too
distant future (unless it has already been done by the current owner).

When checking for rust, really get under there and crawl around with a good
light. Being an east coast vehicle make sure to check for rust underneath (a
lot of people drive on salted roads and NEVBER rinse anything off...this road
salt will start eating everything and especially the magnesium case for the
transmission.

Vibrations while you're driving could mean that the driveshaft either needs
to be rebalanced (people have mixed success results with this), or replaced
($400-600)

Check to make sure the front heater blower works as they ar a pain to
replace.

If it has a rear locking diff...does it work?

The price is pretty decent...depending on how well the current and previous
owners took care of it. With those miles you may be looking at engine work
soon...or maybe not (how's that for helpful info :-)

Hope this helps,

Kevin Curry
'87 Syncro Westy