I haven't followed this thread so far so I don;t know what happened early
on. But on this subject:

I saw an air cooled Vanagon in a wrecking yard with an A/C system that seemed
to be similar to the one on Stan's website in that it had a center vent in
the dash where the radio would normally mount. The Vanagon I saw was pulled
apart and had no radio in it. But it made me wonder with the center A/C vent
using the stock radio hole where would the radio have been mounted?

Then, I noticed the lower dash vent housing was gone from the wreck--missing
altogether--which is to say someone had already grabbed it from the wrecking
yard. This piece is the one that covers the heating ducts that blow toward
the driver and passenger's feet from the bottom center of the dash. (Give or
take this cover plate is a triangle-like shape) The cover is mounted under
the dash and in front of the shifter. Some might mount a cup holder to it in
a stock configuration. Hopefully you get which cover I mean. It's usually
brown plastic and just slides on and off if you're so inclined.

When I saw the radio hole used up by the A/C vent and the cover for the
heating vent below the dash missing I wondered if with this A/C configuration
there was a special cover plate for the heating vents that accomodated a
radio. Somewhere I seem to remember seeing such a cover plate somewhere in  a
photo years ago, but I might be wrong, and can't remember exactly where I saw
the pic. If I'm right, the special cover plate would mount the radio so the
dial of the radio would be pointing upwards toward the roof a bit on about 45
degree angle or so when compaired to the plain of the floor. It would seem
pretty easy to access the radio in this position.

Anyway, my radio is in the stock dash hole. And I thought if I could get a
hold of one of these special cover plates, if they exist, I could adapt the
cover plate to be a great place to mount 3 gauges down there in front of the
shifter in this cover plate.

Maybe I saw this coverplate in a photo in the Illustrated VW buyers guide,
although I don;t have access to the book right now. If someone had the book
take a look in the Vanagon or Synchro section. Or it could have been in one
of those compilation books of Vanagon articles. I don't remember.

Does anyone know if such a plate was available? and or if it still is?

Jeff
83.5 Westy
LA,CA