In a message dated 3/14/05 10:42:19 AM Eastern Standard Time,
albeeee@MCHSI.COM writes:

> Do northern cars have less trouble than southern ones?
>

no.  every vanagon ive ever parted is cracked on the speedo cluster housing
(threaded holes) where the speedo and tach are screwed to the cluster housing.
some less than others, but they all have that problem.   the quality of the
plastic VW used in the speedometer cluster housings doesnt hold up to the UV
rays, heat, vibration, force, and time.   if the cracking is minor, i usually
just reinforce the cracked mount points on the cluster housing with "devcon"
brand plastic welder and its good as new.   a "uncracked" speedo cluster housing
is virtually impossible to find.

as far as the brown plastic VW used in the '80-87 vanagons, it suffers the
same malady.. (brown doorhandles, window crank knobs, rear view mirrors, etc)
 the brown plastic doesnt hold up to the UV rays, heat, and it disentigrates
and turns the surface to a chalky powder.  you can scrape it off with your
fingernails..

the black plastic doesnt have this problem..   any of you  chemist types know
why?   anyway the solution to the problem is to just replace all your
disentigrated brown plastic bits with black ones.
 i have plenty black plastic bits if anyone needs them..

chris