>Spend  $3500 to install a NEW aircooled longblock engine in the westy and
>sell it for $7K. Right now a low-miles vanagon with a fresh motor would
>sell pretty quickly for a good buck.

>Then buy the $7K watercooled vanagon westy you really want. End cost is
>only $3.5K.

This is bad advice.

Time for a poll:

Anyone here ever buy a Westy in the $7K price range, drive it away, and
not have to do any work on it, put any more money into it, and feel
confident in driving around the country, while living in it, right away?

Isn't Stan the one who repeats, without argument, the mantra that your
vanagon will cost you as much in the first year, as you paid for the van?
Maybe it won't need another $7K, but history is not on the side of not
spending any more cash on it. Buying a Westy takes time as well. They are
not on the shelf at 7-11 in most areas :-) If you know of one for $7K,
that needs no work, and no money beyond the buying price, thats good
information, so please pass it along to the rest of us :-)

Looks like Skip is gonna do it. Anyone ever done this kind of conversion
before? Lots of speculation, negative thinking, and parroting of ideas,
but he is not reinventing the wheel, and seems willing to spend and wait.
Gonna be just what he wants, when its all done, and isn't that what all of
us strive for?

I wish Skip well, and I hope he reports on the results, with details for
those of us who are interested in how it turns out, especially the cost.

Mark