A bluebird engine and transmission alone weighs more than a complete
normal running Vanagon. That was some conversion job. Shame it wasn't
further developed and made functional. Could have been some race van.

Dennis

-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of
craig cowan
Sent: Monday, July 30, 2007 11:34 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Re: The power we really need!

I know a guy who before becoming a professional mechanic took a bluebird
bus
engine and put it in a vanagon. He said his buddy had a free vanagon
without
interior that didnt work (dont know if it was air or
watercooled.....wouldnt
matter much), they got ahold of a bluebird bus rear engine/tranny
assembly.....and axles. They got out a sawzaw and cut out the bulk of the
passanger compartment immediately infront of the "engine compartment".
They
than somehow magically mated the said drivetrain to the chassis, shortened
the axels and welded them to the existing vanagon axels, and built a
cooling
system consisting entirely of LARGE flexible hose (showed with his hands
3-4
inch diameter) going to the front and the entire front of the vanagon was
the radiator off the bluebird.

He said the engine management system was SOOOO easy that it was just a few
wires to hook up (starter, negative, and ground), used the stock fuelpump
and put diesel in the tank.......was able to start the thing up and
actually
drive it around! They soon abandoned the project when the engine ceased as
a
result of overheating (he said they let it idle and forgot about it, and
forgot ot install anykind of fan to the radiator....).

The silly thing with this whole thing is this guy does some sick
conversions
on classic/historic cars.....and im going out on a limb in believing him.
Theoretically.....it COULD work. Maybe thats "THE POWER WE REALLY NEED".

Make Mine a Bluebird.
-Craig
'85GL