The rear table in my '87 Westy has been whacking against the driver's side
interior wall recently despite my body builder efforts to supercrank the
tightening knob on the table leg. Supercranking also strips the machine bolt in
the knob, which is not good. The archives contain some inventive solutions, all
of which don't appear "factory" enough for my tastes, so I came up with my own.

To visualise what I've done, run to your Westy right now, remove the table top,
"table tightening knob" and table leg. Raise the lid of the storage bin closest
to the stove/fridge. Inside the bin, you'll see the metal corner bracket through
which the table leg goes and into which is screwed the "table tightening knob".
Remove this bracket. Inside you'll see a convex/concave shaped, rectangular
piece of metal, which I'll call the "pressure tab". When you tighten the knob,
the machine bolt inside forces this "pressure tab" against the table leg to
"lock" the table leg in place.

I've placed a piece of bicycle tubing over this pressure tab so that when the
bracket is re-installed, the tubing will be between the pressure tab and the
table leg. The rubber texture of the tubing provides enough friction to firmly
hold the table leg in place when the knob is screwed in tightly. I cut the
tubing somewhat longer than the pressure tab, in order that the upper end of the
tubing, when in place, can be folded over the edge of the metal corner bracket
and firmly held between the bracket and the cabinet wall when the bracket is
re-installed. This eliminates any need for glue to hold the tubing in position.

Although the table has some play if you tug on it, it no longer whacks against
the van interior wall anymore when I take corners on two wheels.

Roy Olynick
'87 VW Westfalia GL
(till death do us part)
'91 Honda Civic SE
'01 Honda Civic LX
www.autobahn.mb.ca/~rrh/Westy_Home.htm