With spring in the air, I'm getting my westy ready for the upcoming
camping season.  One of the things I have to attend to is dealing with
a propane leak emanating from some of the plumbing on the tank itself.
I totally smeared the propane tank due to a rather routine ground
clearance problem navigating a decommissioned logging road on the last
camping trip I made last fall.

It's clear to me that the propane tank skid guard that 2WD Vanagon
westies are equipped with is a bit of a joke.  I bent it like a gum
wrapper and I didn't even prang it *that* hard.  It's pretty soft
steel--so soft, in fact, that I have been able to bend it (roughly)
back into shape using just basic hand tools.

I want to get a better guard in place there, because I'm certainly not
going to stop taking the camper over rough roads to get to the really
nice camping spots.

What do the syncro crowd have for protecting the propane tank?  I can't
imagine that Derek Drew, for example, has a guard as wimpy as the one
on my bus.  Is there a syncro-spec'd guard I can get, or do I have to
fab up a guard myself?  If the latter, what have folks done to protect
the tank and the fittings attached to it?  I'd rather have a guard
strong enough that I hang up my westy on the tank guard and have to
bring out the high-lift jack than have my tank inelegantly removed or
have the fittings smashed.

Ideas?

T.

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Tobin Copley        Vancouver, BC, Canada      49deg 23'N-123deg 19'W

'82 Westfalia 1.6L NA diesel ("Stinky")
'97 son Russell                               =============
'99 daughter Margaret                        /_| |_L| |__|:| clatter
                          SPEED KILLS!       [.      =     .| clatter!
                     Drive a Vanagon diesel   ~-()-==----()-~ ~  ~