Personally I would consider the effort to put a VW diesel into
a caravan to be too much effort. It is unlikely that standard
mounts accessories etc will work. Swapping engines within a
particular manufacturer line is much simpler.

You might be interested in knowing that caravans can be had
with Diesel engines in Europe. This is also true of just about
every other minivan. Again, I would not to this personally, but
another possibility would be to buy a used diesel engine with all
accessories (incl tranny) and special parts in Europe (around $1000-2000
and ship it to the US (guess: $500 excluding crating fee).

Cheers,
Martin

   Date: Thu, 9 Sep 2004 13:40:09 -0700 (PDT)
   From: Daniel Eyk <danieleyk@yahoo.com>

   Hi, I just recently found your website for the Westy
   Vans and read about your experiences with the diesel
   in it.

   I am interested in either converting something to
   diesel or buying a used one and have considered using
   our Dodge Caravan as it has a dead motor. I don't know
   what the weight comparisons would be, but both our
   Caravan and the Vanagon are rather boxy in general
   shape. I was wondering what your opinion would be
   about the little diesels ability to handle the weight
   of the Caravan? It is a 2.5 liter 4 cyl. automatic in
   all stock form. As far as I know, the biggest thing
   that I would have to do is figure our a adaptor plate
   and coupler from the flywheel to the input shaft and
   the right torque converer that would be compatible
   with a diesel. Any thoughts concerning this possible
   conversion would be appreciated. Thanks, Dan Eyk