John is right, my advice is to replace every darn hose in the van no
matter what the cost.  I once blew an oil cooler coolant hose 2500 miles
from home, i limped to a VW dealership only to find out that the hose i
neeeded had to be ordered from far far away and would take 7 days to get!
I ended up doing a hack job by retrofitting a common 3/4" hose from a NAPA
and almost got arrested for spilling coolant all over the napa parking lot
and sleeping ther cause i was too tired to start driving, not fun at all
but made a good story.  This was in a city of 125,000 people so moral of
the story is you dont have to be broken down in "bum fuck Egypt" to be up
the creek without a stick.  These parts are becoming more and more scarce
and unless you only use the van for around town driving you'd better spend
the bucks on the preventive maintence or pay later.  I was'nt willing to
spend the mega bucks on the PM ($550 for a set of coolant hoses)! and
limited my trips to within towing distance of home.

On Tue, 9 Mar 2004, John Lunetta wrote:

> Take it from me, Listen to Ken. Replace every hose you haven't yet. They
> are not hoses you can find when you are broken down in bum fuck Egypt.
> Some of the smaller hoses are able to be replaced with generic sizes,
> but not many. At the very least buy them and have them with you in your
> VW along with at least 2 gallons of antifreeze and some distilled water.
> I have some brand new ones that I never used. If you are interested give
> me a call. John, once the owner of a 90 vanagon GL. Tel, 631.475.9322 I
> am located on Long Island NY
>