This ought to make it fun.

My '85 Westy has the cast iron lower control arms ... and metal coolant
pipes that run under the van.  It also has 1 throttle control switch like
the later vans instead of the 2 switches found on early 1.9Ls.

Mike

> As the owner of 2 1985 vanagons,I can state some differences between early
> and late 85 vanagons. I think the changes were made around november 85.
> the late 85 has plastic coolant tubes that fit the 1.9.,but not the 2.1
> (rare?). The late 85 has the cast iorn lower control arm suspension found
> in 86 and later vanagons.Since I have both vehicles,I can say that the
> later suspension gives a far superior ride.This lower control arm acts
> like
> a flywheel and stores many of the bumps and shocks rather than transmit
> them into the passenger compartment. However,the early sway bar(21mm
> verses
> the 19mm)is still used in this late 85 vanagon.The early sway bar can be
> used in 86-91 vanagons if you change the inner and outter sway bar
> bushings
> (will this improve drivability?).There are many more small differences
> ,but
> I cant think of them now.Oh yeah,I think the price went up.