My 1983 Westphalia (and all water cooled Vanagons) has a black plastic connection device just next
to the coolant resevoir(left side of engine compartment).  It connects to the upper and lower hoses
(very short) coming out of the coolant resevoir, and allows the coolant to mix or overflow between
these two hoses, and on the other side of the device it connects to the two coolant hoses from the
engine (well, one actually goes across the top of the engine).  It's called the double t piece (025
121 438) and is no longer available from the dealer.

A few months ago mine cracked and leaked, and I epoxied it (jb weld) successfully.  Two days ago one
of the nipples broke off and I'm now trying to figure out a good way to replace this device.  It may
or may not be available from local junk yard, and if it is it will be a used one which will probably
soon be in the cracking mode.

I'm thinking of making one of these using pipe, either galvanized or plastic.  One difficulty is
that in the upper nipple connecting to the hose from the upper coolant reservoir, there is a
restriction.  And galvanized pipe doesn't have a rib to slide rubber hose over.

Has anyone had to do this yet?  I'd like to hear some ideas from anyone who's tried it.  For the
time being I've connected the hoses from the engine directly to the coolant reservoir and it's
working ok, but I'd also like to hear some opinions about juryrigging it this way.

John