When you have the battery out, put some of the plastic strings to get the
electrical wires together around it. If they are too short, you can connect
them. Now it's easy to get the battery out.

KARL
72 Westy
80 Vanagon
84 Toyota van
90 Hyunday (wife's car)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Andrew Gies" <andrew_gies@CANGENE.COM>
To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Sent: Monday, October 20, 2003 2:25 PM
Subject: interior removed from Westy (eventually its a battery question)

> Happy Monday to all -
>
> Well I managed to remove the entire interior (rear of the front seats)
from
> my '86 Westy over the past couple weekends.  I had a couple of reasons for
> doing this:
>
> - to attend to some rust on the interior of the wall along the utility
> inlets - prior to winter storage
> - I want to coat the interior with sound deadening material (next spring)
>
> All in all, with a Bentley in hand, it wasn't too tricky to get everything
> out (getting it back in, well that's another question).  I have to say
that
> by far the hardest thing to do was to get the bloody battery out of the
> compartment beneath the front passenger seat.  Somewhere in the recent
> lifetime of my Westy, a PO measured the space where the battery is
> installed, sized up a battery within a millimetre off his measurements,
and
> proceeded to shoehorn in said battery.  This same battery required two
hours
> of me cursing a blue streak and the full involvement of two people to
> remove.
>
> So this leads me into my question.  What is the "stock" size for a Vanagon
> Westy battery?  I forgot to write down what kind of battery I removed, but
> it looks like an everyday run of the mill battery -  and nothing like the
> battery illustrated in the Bentley.  I am not running the van thru winter,
> so I do not need any excess cold cranking amps.
>
> Would someone please lead me in the direction of a suitable battery that
can
> be installed and removed with ease?
>
>
> P.S.  If you want to improve the performance in a Westy - just tear out
the
> interior.  I took mine out for a quick spin with an empty interior, and it
> was accelerating up the hills!
>
> All of you Canadian or salty winter list members - keep those seals along
> the utility inlets in good working order.  Any water that gets past there
is
> a disaster!  If you suspect some rust in there, rip out the interior, and
> get rid of that gawd awful yellow insulation - it only serves as a holding
> receptacle to ensure maximum rust damage on the interior.
>
> Andrew
>
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