Gordy,
Being an aircooled It's either coming in the van from a bad hatch gasket
or engine cover seal.
To check this make sure the hatch in the rear deck is closed all the way
first. Then get some
tape and tape all along where the gasket is sealing it up.Now do the
same with your rear liftgate
also. Tape adhesive will come off with a good cleaner. If this solves
the problem replaced the
bad gasket. Or
Something in your heating system is drawing in exhaust. Could be one of
the control boxes or one of the tubes from the control box to the heater
tube. Get under the bus and remove the tubes going from
the control box to the heater tubes on the body. Seal up the heater
tubes temp with aluminum foil and tape. See if this isolates your  problem.

Bill M

collum_westy@YAHOO.COM wrote:

>This sounds more like a failed rear hatch seal or
>engine cover seal.
>
>Mike
>'84 GL
>'85 Westy
>
>--- gordy jones <westyutah@YAHOO.COM> wrote:
>
>>I took my 83 air cooled vanagon in to a shop because
>>it didn't pass emissions and there is a place here
>>that does a "5 point adjustment" to try to get it to
>>pass. so i had that done, they adjusted something,
>>it passed, etc. but ever since then, the interior
>>smells like exhaust or something of that nature and
>>it is not faint, it is very apparent. I called the
>>place and told them and they said that doing an
>>emission adjustment is not going to cause something
>>like that to happen. anyway, i guess i will just
>>take it back to have them look at it again. it seems
>>like there must be some leak in the exhaust
>>somewhere. what else could cause this?
>>
>>~Gordy
>>
>>
>>
>>---------------------------------
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>
>
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