"Honey, I think we should consider selling the Vanagon?"

Pardon?   "Shelving" the vanagon?  No honey, it's got shelves in it
already.   And besides, why would we want to work on the interior
when the engine is dead....the engine...the engine is dead....it's
dead.  Uh oh. That's not what you said, is it?  What did you say
exactly?

It could happen to you.  The fear.  Those words...echoing in your head.

How do I convince my sig.other that spending $4k to $8k on a engine
rebuild/fix/swap actually is a good idea.   This is, after all, a 20
year old car with 150k miles on it.     I think she's still mad over
the 24 hours spent broken down in the middle of nowhere on our last
vacation.   She's also concerned about global warming.    And
societal breakdown.    So I'm thinking maybe start with the TDI
conversion running biodiesel (reliable and good for the environment)
and then negotiate from there?   Maybe the idea that the vanagon
could be up-armored a lot easier than a Camry, and we'd probably look
silly driving a Camry with mohawks and crossbows?

Help me out here!

:-)