>When I chaged my fuel lines on my early '84 Westy, I discovered that my
>firewall conector was metal instead of plastic.  It still looked very good
>so I just hooked the new lines back up to it.  I do not think the line
>were changed by the PO so I assumed at the time that it was only the latter
>vanagons that had the plastic firewall conector.  Am I missing something?
>I have not seen anyone else mention a metal firewall connector on early
>Vanagons.  Thanks

It's sometimes hard to tell if the lines have been replaced or not. My
initial examination led me to believe that the lines in my '90 were
original, due to their apparent age. But yesterday I went looking for that
plastic bulkhead fitting and found only a continuous length of fuel line,
in a black plastic anti-chafe sleeve (clearly not OEM), running through a
fat rubber grommet. So apparently the lines WERE replaced at one point
(another clue was finding a few rusty cheap FLAPS hose clamps in a couple
spots). Point is, it's hard to tell sometimes. The (#%&!@!! jackass) PO of
my van used to overheat it regularly, so much of the rubber in the engine
compartment was pretty thoroughly cooked. But who knows? Maybe the early
models had a metal bulkhead fitting.

John Bange
'90 Vanagon "Geldsauger"