This conversation is amusingly coincident with a story my father told me
Saturday. He and my mother drove from Ft Wayne, IN to Riverside, CA in a '59
Beetle while pulling a UHaul trailer(!). This included crossing the Mojave,
albeit at night. They had little furniture so the UHaul was likely filled
with books and baby gear as my sister was 5 months old at the time. So this
would be late '62. What was that engine, about 36hp?

When they had crossed the desert and stopped in Barstow(?), the heads were
so hot that the engine just dieseled on until my Pop stumped it with the
clutch. They continued to drive it for another two years until they bought a
'63 Bus. I am amazed that that engine survived such abuse. The only apparent
damage the towing did was pull the bumper mounts through the sheet metal.

cheers,

mordo

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: John <kayakjr@juno.com>
Date: Apr 16, 2007 6:11 AM
Subject: Re: In praise of aircooled vanagons
To: vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com

Mike,

My first car was a Corvair (still have doors and hood form a 69 convertible
- anyone want
em'?). Loved it, still have a Uni-Syn that I'm going to put on a bookcase to
quiz visitors on.

I was going to put a Porsche 6 in, when a friend called to offer me his 86
Westfalia
Weekender for a good deal  and since it was only 3,000+ miles away (we both
live a couple
of miles from the ocean, pacific and Atlantic), I bought the van.

I have a friend who had many Porsche engines in various states and was going
to let me
assemble one and buy it for short money.  Only bad thing, beside cost of
replacement parts
is 6 carbs!  And god are those, even used, expensive. The Porsche world is
so expensive,
that one might as well go Subaru, except it nice to assemble a motor,
complete with
exhaust, bench test it (friend made up a a test stand) and then install it
pretty much ready
to go.  But I digress...

John

Well put!!  For more power and keeping it air cooled, you can't beat a 6 cyl
Corvair for
reliability and bang for the buck!  I know one other person who is doing
this swap :)

But I digress, the speed in Vanagon suites me fine :)

All the best,
Mike

--
mordo
1990 Carat